


When All Is Said and Done

by fanoftheknight



Category: Jack Taylor (TV)
Genre: Brooding Irish Male, F/M, Jack Taylor being Jack Taylor, Swearing, This man is a walking disaster
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:02:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 36
Words: 55,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25626379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanoftheknight/pseuds/fanoftheknight
Summary: Jack Taylor, ex-Guard causes chaos wherever he goes. Trying to get by as a private investigator, Jack takes on what seems like a simple case of a missing person, but when have things ever been simple where Jack is concerned?Jack and Kate Noonan swing violently between love and hate, but a shootout in an abandoned factory lot may change their lives forever...
Relationships: Jack Taylor/Kate Noonan
Comments: 157
Kudos: 165





	1. Present Day

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I've been sitting on this (as yet) unfinished Jack Taylor story for a while. I'm going against the grain and starting posting this story without having completed the first draft and so for those of you reading (if anyone actually does!) the updates will probably not be as frequent as my GoT Jorleesi stories, but I promise that I will do my best to update this story as frequently as I can.
> 
> The chapters will swing between past and present and I hope this doesn't get too confusing and I'll try to make it clear which chapter is which as the story unfolds.

The sound of gunfire pierced the eery quiet of the night as muzzle flashes from a number of guns lit up the sky.

Of the many investigations that Jack Taylor had undertaken, this had seemed like one of the simplest.

At the time.

Somewhere between taking the case on and now, everything had gone to shit in a matter of weeks, not at least where he and Kate and their tumultuous relationship were concerned.

If you could call what they had a relationship.

They had been on and off again more times than a light switch in a hotel room and each time they broke up, they both swore that, this time, it would be the last.

If pushed, neither of them would be able to put a finger on where their latest argument had started, but things had descended into another heated, sprawling mess, just as they always did when they were together.

They loved one another, but goddamn they were bad for each other, always bringing out the worst in each other no matter how hard they tried not to and as usual, Jack would always have his finger on the self-destruct button, ready to press it at a moment’s notice and blow everything to rat shit.

Chaos was his default setting, after all.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Kate shouted as Jack peered over the bonnet of the car they were hiding behind. It had been the only cover they could find when the shooting started.

Jack threw himself back down to the ground, but not before firing a few shots of his own.

Kate told herself that she’d grill him on just how the hell he’d got hold of a firearm later, preferably when neither of them had any bullet holes in them.

The gunfire must have alerted someone within the vicinity of abandoned industrial estate as Kate heard sirens coming ever closer as the seconds ticked by and the hail of gunfire continued unabated. They were both running out of bullets fast and there would be no means of escape, pinned down as they currently were.

“I’m giving those feckers a taste of their own medicine,” Jack replied. “See how the fuck they like having their arses shot at.”

Kate rolled her eyes, but not before cursing under her breath at the utter mess her brand new car was in, riddled with bullet holes. It would be an absolute bitch to get insurance for it after this epic fuck up.

Yet another thing she would make sure Jack paid for.

In for a penny, in for a pound, Kate thought, shrugging her shoulders and joining Jack in rising from their position of cover, firing back a few shots of her own.

The shots went back and forth as armed Garda officers began to flood the vacant parking lot and before long the only shots being fired were from behind the car. The gunmen had likely all been killed or injured in the volley of bullets fired their way.

“That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into,” Kate said, releasing a deep breath she hadn’t realised she was holding as she slid her back down the side of the car, looking at the Garda officers making their way towards them.

She’d expected some sort of pithy, sarcastic retort from Jack.

What she hadn’t expected was silence.

“Jack?” she said, glancing down to the ground, her voice dying in her throat as she looked at his prone form and the blood that was seeping from the side of his head.

“Jack?” She said again, shaking him by the shoulders, panicking when she got no response from him. “Jack, open your eyes and look at me!” She ordered him, barely hearing the officers and paramedics coming up behind her.

She felt someone move her gently out of the way as the paramedics pulled equipment from their bags, listening for signs of breathing and shaking their head when they found none.

“Help him!” Kate screamed.

He couldn’t die. Not now.

One of the paramedics shot her a sympathetic look as his partner deftly inserted a tube down the prone man’s throat before charging up the portable defibrillators.

Kate watched on silently as they ripped Jack’s shirt open, cutting through his t-shirt before slapping pads on his unmoving chest. She flinched when the machine whirred and then beeped as it sent a shock through his body.

The two paramedics looked at each other, shaking their heads.

“Do it again!” Kate screamed at them. 

She couldn’t lose Jack, not like this. There were so many things she needed to say to him. 

What if she never got the chance?

The machines beeped and whirred, the shock went through Jack’s body twice more and still nothing.

“Keep trying!” She screamed at them.

One of the paramedics pulled out a syringe and jabbed it into the inert form of Jack’s chest and Kate found herself holding her breath as the defibrillator charged for what she knew would be the last time.

There was a deathly silence and time seemed to slow before a gasp escaped Jack’s throat and his chest and lungs filled with precious oxygen. The paramedics threw him roughly onto a stretcher and ran back to the ambulance.

“You coming with him?” One of them asked.

Kate nodded her head and jumped in the back of the vehicle before it tore through the streets of Galway on its way to the nearest hospital.

She grabbed Jack’s hand, watching the paramedic continuing to squeeze air into his lungs through the bag in his hand. Jack’s hand was cold and lifeless, his skin taking on an odd grey pallor.

“Will he be ok?” Kate asked, her voice shaking. She was trying her best to keep the tears at bay.

The paramedic removed the dressing from the side of Jack’s head to inspect it. It continued to bleed sluggishly.

“We’ll know more when we get him to the hospital,” he answered her, not looking up from his current task. “We just need to keep him stable until we get there.”

As if on cue, the machines that Jack was connected to began to beep and whine.

“You’re going to need to step on it, Paul,” the paramedic said, calling to his partner at the wheel of the vehicle.

“Fight, you stubborn, stupid bastard,” Kate mumbled under her breath, squeezing his cold hand tighter. “You’re not fucking getting out of it this easily.”

The next few minutes were a flurry of movement and chatter as the brakes of the ambulance screeched and the vehicle skidded to a stop outside the hospital entrance. Soon, there were people everywhere and Kate found Jack’s hand slipping away from hers as they pushed the stretcher inside and began running down the corridor.

* * *

She must have sat in that hospital corridor for hours and at some point Darragh had arrived and handed her a cup of coffee from the first available vending machine he came across. True to his calm nature, he said nothing as he sat by her side, nursing his own cup of the revolting brown liquid. There would be no point talking to Kate when she was still in a state of shock and so he sat in the hard plastic chair next to hers, beginning a vigil that stretched deep into the night.

A man in scrubs approached them. “Are you here for Jack Taylor?” He asked, his accent Eastern European.

“We are,” Darragh replied, giving Kate a quick nudge to bring her back to reality. “How is he?”

“I’m a neurosurgeon and I’ve been asked to look at the results of Mr. Taylor’s scans,” the doctor began, his eyes landing upon the bedraggled state Kate was currently in. “The results show what looks like some sort of metal projectile lodged in the right side of his skull, just above the ear.” The doctor pointed to the same area on his own head.

“There…there was a shoot-out,” Kate said, still in a daze from the evening’s events.

“Someone shot him in the head?” Darragh asked, not quite believing what he was hearing.

“I assume it wasn’t a direct hit as we probably wouldn’t be standing here right now. From the location and position of the projectile it was likely deflected or ricocheted before hitting Mr. Taylor.”

Darragh gulped, “What are his chances?”

The doctor looked down at the clipboard in his hand before answering.

“It is difficult to say, but the fact that he is still with us is a good sign.”

“So he’ll be alright?” Kate asked, still only half-listening and not understanding the magnitude of the situation.

The doctor frowned. 

“There is bleeding on the brain and we need to try to remove the projectile in one piece. Significant pressure has built up within the skull so we’re taking him straight to surgery to try to relieve some of that.”

Darragh found himself choking on his next words.

“Will there be any permanent damage?”

As stubborn, rude and downright hellish as Jack could be at times, there was also a lot to like about him, He was a typical, loveable Irish rogue and the thought of Jack not being the same man ever again was not something Darragh wanted to contemplate right now.

“Some level of impairment is likely with the type of injury Mr. Taylor has sustained, but we’ll know more once we start operating on him.” The doctor paused for a moment before continuing, “There are a number of risks involved in the procedure and I need to inform you that there is also a considerable chance that he might not even survive the anaesthesia or the surgery itself.”

* * *

Dawn was breaking when the surgeon finally arrived to give them an update on Jack’s condition. Kate shook Darragh by the shoulder to wake him from the sleep he’d fallen into at some point in the early hours of the morning.

“Is he?”

Kate couldn’t finish the sentence. The look on the surgeon’s face was grim and the sweat marks on his scrubs and his head were testament to the fact that the surgery had probably not passed without incident.

“He’s alive,” the surgeon reassured them. “We were able to remove the projectile and stem the bleeding. However, there is still a significant amount of pressure within the skull due to the nature of the impact injury.”

“But he survived the surgery?” Kate said, a hint of hope in her voice. “He’ll recover?”

“Nothing is certain at this point,” the surgeon cautioned. “We’ll need to take it hour by hour, but if he can pull through the next few days things may start to look a little more optimistic.”

“What are his chances?” Darragh asked, repeating the same question he’d asked before the surgery.

“Between 35-40% at this stage…maybe more if we can get through the next 48 hours,” the surgeon replied. “Although it is difficult to say, each brain injury is different. I’m sorry that I don’t have better news for you.”

“Can we - “ Kate cleared her throat, trying not to choke on her words. “Can we see him?”

“Briefly,” he answered as Kate and Darragh followed him down several corridors until they reached the intensive care unit and the room Jack was in.

Kate gasped as she looked at the heavy bandaging around Jack’s head. His eyes were taped closed and tube ran from his mouth, connected to a ventilator that was breathing for him. There were tubes and wires everywhere she looked, and it seemed that there was no part of Jack’s body where something wasn’t inserted or stuck to him. She picked up his lifeless hand, careful of the IV port in the back of it, giving it a squeeze.

She couldn’t help feeling dismayed that he showed no sign of response to her presence.

“I need you to wake up you stubborn arsehole,” she gently admonished him. “You owe me for the damage to my car,” she chuckled although tears streamed from her eyes, landing on the blanket covering most of Jack’s body. “You’re the most belligerent, hard-headed, gobby, infuriating person I’ve ever met but I need you, Jack. I’m the one who leaves you, remember?”

Only now, when his survival was still uncertain, did Kate realise just how much she needed him in her life. For all the chaos he brought with him, the two of them had become so intrinsically linked that she couldn’t imagine a world without him in it.

She needed him and for the first time since they’d met, she wasn’t afraid to admit it.


	2. 14th November (two weeks earlier)

14th NOVEMBER (TWO WEEKS EARLIER):

“Ah, shit,” Jack groaned, rolling onto his back, his head pounding from one drink too many the night before.

Still, at least the evening had ended well if the woman lying next to him was anything to go by.

His voice was enough to make Kate groan as she too rolled onto her back, bringing a hand to her forehead and feeling the first inklings of a hangover making themselves known.

“Morning,” Jack croaked, leaning over to kiss her before pulling himself out of the bed, looking around the room for his jeans wherever they had been discarded the night before.

It was still difficult for him to get his head around it, living in such a spacious apartment, especially when he’d gotten so used to living in the cramped bedsit at Mrs. Bailey’s. It was only the money she’d left Jack in her will that meant her could afford such surroundings now.

He missed her still. Mrs. Bailey had been far more of a mother to him than his own ever had.

“Where are you going?” Kate asked as her head flopped back down to the pillow.

“I’m meeting someone who has a job for me,” he replied, pulling on a grey sweatshirt, lifting Kate’s discarded clothes while trying to find his shoes.

Their relationship had always been passionate and fiery, neither of them able to keep their hands off each other for too long, which meant that they inevitably ended up falling back into bed together. It seemed to be the stock response any time they had an argument, it would always lead them back to the bedroom where they would settle any differences they had between the sheets.

“It’s Sunday morning, Jack,” Kate whined as he made his way back over to her side to kiss her slowly and seductively on the mouth. 

“I won’t be long,” he said with a smile as he left the room.

Closing her eyes against the feeling of nausea gripping at her insides, Kate groaned and tried to get back to sleep.

* * *

Jack sat on a bench in Eyre Square, nursing a cup of takeaway coffee while waiting for his contact to arrive.

It was still relatively early and while most of the city was still sleeping off its Saturday-night bender, the only people Jack could see were the winos and drunks wrapped in their winter coats, trying their best to fight off the chill November air.

He felt a pang of guilt as he took another sip of his coffee. Sure, he’d had his own battles with the bottle, but never had he hit the rock bottom low of living on the streets, begging for a few euros so he could get his next fix.

He’d never got so low because for some damned reason he had people in his life who seemed to care about him, people who would reach out a hand and pull him up each time he threatened to plant face-first into the tarmac as his life spun wildly out of control. If it hadn’t been for their steadying presence, he would have drunk himself to death years ago.

There seemed to be no reasonable explanation as to why Kate or Mrs. Bailey had stuck by him in the way they had. He’d given them far too many opportunities to kick him aside, yet still they came back for more.

And then there had been Cody. Dear, sweet Cody.

He was off living his life somewhere in America right now and Jack knew without a doubt that it was the safest place for the kid to be. Anyone who stuck around with Jack Taylor too long would always find themselves on the wrong end of fate, constantly paying the price for his stupid, drunken mistakes.

In times of introspection he would often look for some sort of justification for his existence, trying to find it at the bottom of a glass of whiskey and inevitably coming up short. If his mother and Father Malachy were to be believed, the only things Jack gave the world were pain and destruction.

It didn’t matter what he did, he would always bring those he cared about to ruin. It was both his nature and his destiny, neither of which he could outrun, however much he might want to.

“A penny for them, Mr Taylor?” A man said, approaching the bench and sitting down next to Jack. His English accent spoke of good breeding, the suit he wore making it clear that he was a man of great financial means.

“More than even you could afford, I’d wager,” Jack replied before draining the last of his coffee and tossing it into the bin.

“I appreciate you meeting me here, Mr. Taylor.” 

“It’s Jack,” he replied, pulling his all-weather Garda coat across his chest in an effort to keep warm. “And what should I call you?”

The man smiled. “Mr. Smith will suffice.”

Jack gave a rueful shake of the head. “Sure, Mr. Smith.” He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. “And what is it that you need looking into?”

“Straight to the point, I see,” Mr. Smith replied.

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not all that big on chit chat.”

“Indeed,” Mr Smith replied, reaching into his pocket and handing a photograph to Jack, one in which four young boys stood arm in arm on a beach, the only clothing they wore was that of their bathing suits.

Jack handed the photo back almost instantly. 

“Look, if you’re some kind of paedophile, I don’t want anything to do you with, no matter how much money you offer me.”

Mr. Smith sniffed. “From what I’ve heard, you’re not exactly a man of many morals, Jack.”

Jack snorted. “Even I have my limits,” he replied, finishing the last of his cigarette and tossing it to the floor. “Find someone else to do whatever dirty work you’ve got.”

The other man chuckled. “For a man of your age and experience, you are incredibly naive it would seem. I am one of the children in that photograph, the other three are all boys I went to school with.”

Jack turned to face him. “Nice story, but what does it have to do with me?”

“I need you to track down Nathaniel here,” Mr. Smith said, pointing at a young boy with blonde hair and strong jawline. “He was last seen in Galway several months ago.”

“And I’m supposed to track him down using that picture?” Jack huffed. “Chances are he’s changed a bit since then.”

“I know that,” Mr. Smith said patiently.

“Then why show it to me?”

“Because I want you to know that I’m searching for Nathaniel for the right reasons,” the other man replied, suddenly looking a great deal older than the thirty-odd year old he seemed to be. “The four of us were like brothers…boarding school is tough, and we learned to rely on each other to help us get through each day.”

“This is all very heart-warming and all,” Jack scoffed, “but how about just getting to the point?”

Mr. Smith raised an eyebrow. “They told me you were blunt, but I guess that’s why you’re so good at what you do…cutting through the bullshit and getting to the heart of the matter.” Mr. Smith put the photo back into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Nathaniel has always been troubled, and I fear he’s gotten himself into some sort of mess. All I need you to do is track him down and let me know where he is. I can take care of the rest.”

Jack wasn’t sure he liked the sound of this Mr. Smith taking care of his missing friend, but a job was a job and he was hardly in a position to turn work down. Besides, it seemed an easy enough case to take on. It wasn’t as if it would be the first missing person he’d tracked down in his time.

“Do you have a more recent photograph of him?” Jack asked, his hands in his coat pockets.

Mr. Smith nodded and handed an envelope to him. Jack’s eyes widened in surprise at the amount of money stuffed into it. Ignoring the cash, he pulled out the two photographs to see a tall, willowy figure with blonde hair and green eyes staring somewhat vacantly at the camera. He might have been thirty years older, but the jawline of the man was the same as the picture of him as a child.

“This Nathaniel got a surname?” Jack asked. 

“O’Donaghue,” Mr. Smith replied. “His mother and father were from Galway and moved to England just after Nathaniel was born.”

Jack put the photos back in the envelope before stuffing it into his pocket.

“They still alive?” He asked.

Mr. Smith shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Does he have any family here in Galway?”

“A couple of cousins that used to visit England in the summer back when we were children,” Mr Smith replied.

“These cousins got names?”

“Patrick and Siobhan. They both still live in the Salthill area, I think.”

Jack turned his back on the man, calling over his shoulder.

“Leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do.”

“How do I keep in contact with you? When will I get an update?”

“You don’t call me,” Jack said already several feet away. “I’ll call you.”


	3. Present Day

**Present day:**

Kate threw her coat onto the sofa and flopped down onto it, her head pounding from the events of the last twenty-four hours.

A few hours after she’d been allowed to visit Jack’s bedside, Darragh had finally managed to convince her to go home and get some rest, promising her that he would stay at the hospital and call her if anything changed with Jack’s condition.

The doctor had been cautious regarding Jack’s chances of survival and those first few hours seemed to drag by painfully slowly as the image of the man she loved sprawled on the ground repeated over and over in her head.

She came home with the intention of getting a few hours’ sleep before heading back to the hospital again. She and Darragh agreed to take it in shifts knowing that Jack had no other ‘family’ to speak of, and while his chances of making it through the next 48 hours were less than 50%, they knew they both owed it to Jack to be with him if he died.

From the moment Jack walked into her life five years earlier, he had turned her life upside down, all the while generating every possible human emotion within her. At times she hated him, despised him, he infuriated her with his lack of stability and his penchant for falling violently off the wagon time and time again. Yet he had always been able to make her smile, and he had been the one to make her feel like a woman again after the loss of her breast. He made her feel more alive than any man ever had. Everything about them and their relationship was messy, but oh what a glorious mess they made.

As much as she might wish otherwise, the doctor told them that even if Jack survived there would be a significant chance that he might not ever be the same man again and the thought brought Kate up short. Jack was an emotional train wreck and hard enough to deal with as it was, the thought of having to take care of him physically as well as emotionally frightened her.

And then came the guilt of even thinking about leaving Jack to his own devices, placing him in some sort of facility where a bunch of strangers tended to his physical needs. Kate knew, without a doubt, that Jack would have stuck by her if the tables were turned.

And she was getting way, _way_ ahead of herself, of course.

She was just about to lie down and take a nap when her mobile phone rang, she cursed it under her breath as she saw the familiar number.

“Kate, we need you to come down to the station and give us a debrief on last night’s incident,” Superintendent Clancy said.

She ran a hand over her face, feeling the exhaustion hit her all at once.

“Can it not wait, sir?”

“I’m afraid not,” he replied, his tone brooking no argument. “I’ll expect to see you here within the hour.”

And so she dragged herself down to the station to explain what had happened and how she and Jack had ended up in the middle of a gunfight in an abandoned industrial estate, while leaving out the parts that would get both she and Jack into all manner of legal trouble.

“Why am I not surprised that Jack Taylor was involved in this,” Clancy sighed, sitting back heavily in his chair. “That man causes chaos wherever he goes.”

Not able to defend himself, Kate argued on Jack’s behalf.

“It wasn’t his fault, sir,”

Clancy shook his head. “No, nothing ever is Jack’s fault, is it?” He said tiredly. “How is he?”

The question caught Kate by surprise. Jack and Clancy had their fair share of run-ins in the past and there was no love lost between them. Why would Clancy, of all people, care about a man who caused him nothing but trouble?

“He’s about as welcome as a boil on my arse,” Clancy continued, “but he was a good cop…when he wasn’t on the wrong end of the bottle,” he finished with a sad smile.

Kate struggled to find the words to speak. “I - “

“You care about him,” Clancy observed. “He’s a nightmare…he causes nothing but trouble wherever he goes…but he’s a hard man not to like.”

Okay, she really hadn’t been expecting Clancy to say that.

“I’m placing you on leave for the next two weeks, Noonan,” Clancy said, writing something down and closing the folder in front of him. “On full pay, of course.”

Kate ran a hand through her hair, completely bewildered by Clancy’s apparent change of heart where Jack was concerned.

“I’ve heard he might not make it,” Clancy continued. “God knows he’s pushed everyone else away, but someone should be there if…” His words trailed off.

“Thank you, sir,” Kate said, standing and making to leave and only stopping when Clancy called out to her.

“Tell Jack to pull his finger out of his arse and stop lazing around. I’m sure he’s got some lost cats or cheating husbands to chase down.”

It was the closest that Clancy would likely ever come to wishing his adversary well.

And now here she was, sat on the sofa in her apartment willing herself not to cry. Try as she might, she couldn’t hold back any longer and so she cried until she exhausted herself and fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Darragh woke with a jolt as the door to the hospital room opened and he realised that he must have fallen asleep at some point. With everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours, he’d needed to meditate for a while to help process it all, although he wasn’t sure when meditation had turned into a full-blown nap at Jack’s bedside.

The male nurse smiled apologetically.

“Sorry to wake you, I just need to take his vitals and check a few things over. I shouldn’t be long.”

Darragh rubbed at his face, sitting up straighter in the chair and looking at the nurse expectantly.

“No change,” the nurse said, sensing the question Darragh wanted to ask. “That’s a good thing,” the nurse reassured him. “His blood pressure and pulse rate could be better, but they’re no worse than they were before. It means he’s hanging in there.”

One look at the sheer amount of equipment being used was no doubt the reason why Jack wasn’t dead right now. Darragh knew that it was mainly the machinery that kept the other man breathing and his body functioning on some basic level.

“I’d feel a lot better if he just woke up,” Darragh replied, trying to keep the concern from his voice. He’d always put so much stock in keeping calm and meditating but found his beliefs sorely tested as he looked upon Jack’s prone form and the lifeless hand he held.

“I’m afraid that’s a long way off yet,” the nurse said. “We’re keeping him sedated for the time being to give him the best chance. The doctors won’t look to reduce that until the swelling on his brain has gone down significantly.

“I don’t suppose you’d know when that would be?” Darragh asked hopefully.

“It could be days…weeks…it really depends on the patient and the type of injury. Bringing him out of the coma is a long way off yet and there’s a chance…”

The nurse trailed off, he was meant to be reassuring the man holding a vigil at his patient’s bedside, not making things worse.

“That he might not wake up at all,” Darragh finished for him.

The nurse nodded and placed the chart back on the end of the bed before pressing a few buttons on one of the machines.

“The only thing we can do is take it hour by hour,” the nurse replied. “For every hour he hangs on, the better his chances might look.”

And with that, Darragh returned to his position of sentry, continuing to watch over the man he cared for far more than he was truly willing to admit.

* * *

Kate returned to the hospital to find Darragh sitting by Jack’s bedside reading a book on meditation aloud to the unconscious man.

“You’re meant to be encouraging him to hang on, not pushing the poor bastard closer to death’s door,” Kate said, a watery smile on her face as she walked over to Jack and took one of his hands in hers.

“Did you get any sleep?” Darragh asked, folding down a page and closing the book.

“A couple of hours,” Kate replied, “in between having to give a report to Clancy.”

Darragh winced, imagining the grilling his cousin got from her boss.

“Any change?” Kate asked, pulling a chair over and sitting by Jack’s bedside.

Darragh shook his head.

“They said that’s a good thing,” he said, his eyes casting over the sorry state the other man was in. There were tubes and wires everywhere and although the rhythmic sound of the ventilator pushing precious oxygen into Jack’s lungs was almost soothing, it served to remind Darragh that the man was far from well.

“You should go home and get some rest,” Kate suggested. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”

With a weary sigh, Darragh dragged himself to his feet with a nod.

“Ok, I’ll be back - “

A shrill noise from one of the machines silenced whatever Darragh had been about to say and the previously unmoving figure of Jack began to twitch and convulse. All too soon, he and Kate were pushed from the room as doctors and nurses came flooding in.


	4. 15th November

**15th November:**

“You’re looking chipper this morning,” Kate remarked, watching Jack pour himself cup of coffee before handing one to his girlfriend.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“What can I say, it must be all the exercise I’ve been getting lately,” he replied, cocking his eyebrow suggestively at her.

They might fight like cat and dog and bicker over the smallest things, but there was definitely a deep physical connection between the two of them. Kate had been with her fair share of men, but there was something about Jack that set her on fire in a way that no other man had ever been able to match.

He gave her a smug grin as he bit into a piece of toast. Jack was good in bed and he knew it, the arrogant bastard.

He returned to his apartment as promised after meeting with his new client, bringing back coffee and breakfast for his girlfriend. He was the ultimate paradox; he could be thoughtless and cruel and at other times loving and selfless. It all depended on which version of Jack Taylor would get out of bed that day, but for now, he seemed to be more inclined to listen to the angel on his shoulder than the devil on the opposite side.

The two of them had looked through the photos ‘Mr. Smith’ had given him, with Kate agreeing to run the names of Nathaniel and his cousins through the system when she was at the station the next day.

“Does he want you to find the guy or kill him?” Kate had remarked, her eyes falling on the thick wedge of euros in the envelope.

She took another sip of her coffee before getting ready to leave Jack’s apartment.

“I’ll see what I can do about these names and let you know,” she said, pulling on her coat and grabbing her car keys. “What are you going to be doing today?”

Jack gulped down the last of his coffee.

“I’ll start asking around, see if anyone has seen or heard of Nathaniel lately.”

Kate frowned, knowing that when Jack started ‘asking around’ it usually led to him getting into trouble.

“Be careful,” Kate admonished him, kissing him as he pulled her towards him with her belt.

“I’ll be a good boy, I promise,” he replied, smiling against her lips.

Knowing that Jack’s definition of being ‘good’ was wildly different from most people’s interpretation, his words didn’t exactly help to allay her fears about him.

“Just don’t go pissing anyone off, ok?”

He gave her a look of dismay, the smile on his face clearly telling her that he was mocking her.

“Would I ever piss anyone off?”

Kate cradled his face in her hands and gave him one last kiss before leaving the apartment.

“Behave,” she ordered him, waggling her finger at him.

* * *

True to form and as with many of his investigations, Jack decided to start his enquiries in the pub. Sure, it was only eleven o’clock in the morning, but there was wealth of knowledge and information that could be gleaned at the bar of your local watering hole. And of course there was a wealth of alcohol, too.

He surprised himself when he shook his head as Jeff asked if he wanted his usual, asking for a coffee instead.

“You feeling ok, Jack?” Jeff questioned with some concern.

“Dandy,” he replied, sipping on his coffee. “What?” He said irritably as Jeff continued to stare at him.

“You going straight or something?” Jeff asked.

“Or something,” Jack answered bluntly. “I’m on the job.”

Jeff snorted at that.

“Since when has that stopped you?” The barman shot back.

Since he knew he was on his final chance with Kate, that’s what, he thought to himself.

They had broken up so many times it was a surprise that they could pick up the shattered pieces of their relationship and still be able to put it back together again.

Although they’d both indulged in a bottle of whiskey on Saturday night, Jack woke he next day with a determination to be a better boyfriend and partner to the woman he loved.

 _“Boyfriend?”_ The devil on his shoulder mocked. _“You’re a grown man, not a fucking teenager.”_

He ignored the snide little voice and took another sip of his coffee. No wonder people in the pub drank alcohol when the coffee tasted this shite.

His life was always much more stable with Kate by his side, but she had already grown tired of his drunken antics. The booze always gave him an itchy trigger finger, the digit hovering precariously close to the self-destruct button and it was only when he was sober that he could resist the urge to press it by shoving his hands back in his pockets, far enough away to bring him back onto the straight and narrow.

He’d fallen off the wagon so many times that it was a wonder he could clamber back onto it at all, but like being thrown from a horse, he’d dust himself down and try again, because God loves a trier, doesn’t he?

Jack had no doubt that his mother would be turning in her grave to see the state of him now, but perhaps some small part of her would be proud that he was trying to stay sober this time.

This time.

He was an arsehole, a thoughtless git who brought everyone around him to ruin, either pushing away the people he cared about or getting them killed. He was a drunken, useless shit and caused carnage wherever he went, but he tried to be a good man.

God, he tried.

There was nothing he could do about all of those forgotten yesterdays except kick some grass over that shit and try to be better tomorrow.

At least that’s what the angel on his shoulder would tell him. It would be then that the devil would whisper in his ear, reminding him of all the chaos he created and the fact that his mother never showed him an ounce of love or affection.

People like him were nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, fated to fail from the day they were born…

“Not that it ain’t nice to see ya, Jack,” Jeff said, wiping down the bar. “But I’m guessing you didn’t come here for the coffee?”

He shook his head to clear his thoughts before pulling the photograph of Nathaniel from the inside pocket of all-weather Garda coat.

“I’m looking for this guy,” Jack said. “Have you seen him around here?”

Jeff stopped what he was doing and took a good look at the man in the photograph before shaking his head and handing it back.

“Afraid not,” Jeff replied. “He’s definitely not one of the regulars. What’s his story?”

Jack gulped down another mouthful of his coffee, wincing at the vile taste.

“He went missing a few months back…last seen in Galway.

“And you expect to find him in a pub?” Jeff questioned.

“It’s why most people come to Galway, to disappear. It sure as shite ain’t for the atmosphere,” Jack retorted with a humourless huff.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” Jeff said, picking the cloth up and wiping the bar down again. “I’ll keep an eye out and ask our regulars if they’ve seen him around.”

Jack drained the last of his coffee before making his way to the exit.

“You’re not going to pay for that?” Jeff asked, gesturing toward the empty coffee cup.

“I’ve drunk better drain cleaner,” Jack called over his shoulder. “Be seeing you, Jeff.”

* * *

Much like he had the day before, Jack made his way through the winos and drunks, occasionally asking if any of them had seen a man who fitted Nathaniel’s description. Their memories could hardly be described as accurate, as addled as many of them were from too many years of alcoholism, but there was always a small chance that one of them might be able to point him in the right direction.

He was making his way through the town when a drunk called out to him. His eyes fell upon a man with hardly any teeth who was dressed in rags that had more holes than cloth.

“I’m thirsty, kind sir,” the haggard man said. “Help a brother out?”

He turned to face the man, pitying the state of him. It should have been him sitting there, begging for money so that he could get his next fix and lose himself in a bottle of whatever cheap shite he could get his hands on.

He handed his cup of coffee to the man only to find it batted away.

“Fucking shite!” The wino shouted, shaking his head. “Arsehole!”

Jack shrugged his shoulders and walked away, knowing that any other time he would have done exactly the same thing. You could lead a horse to water, but you’d never get the fecker to drink unless it wanted to.

 _“Since when did you get so virtuous?”_ The snide voice in Jack’s head questioned him. _“One good deed doesn’t make up for all the shit you’ve caused, old man.”_

 _“Fuck off,”_ Jack mumbled to himself before approaching another homeless alcoholic and cursing Kate for not having called with any information yet. Trawling through the streets with Galway’s great unwashed was hard work and the more pubs he visited, the harder he would find it to resist the urge of a creamy pint of Guinness.

He pulled the phone out of his pocket the moment it began to ring.

“What have you got for me?” He said before she could even say hello.

“Yeah, and I love you, too,” she groused. 

The word ‘love’ brought Jack up short.

“I ran the cousins names through the system…no hits,” she said.

“And Nathaniel?” Jack asked.

“Here’s where it gets interesting,” Kate teased, deliberately leaving Jack hanging on her answer. “Meet me at O’Malley’s in an hour and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“You buying me lunch?” Jack teased.

“Hell no,” she replied quickly. “You’re going to owe me more than lunch when I show you what I’ve found.”


	5. Present Day

**Present day:**

It had been twelve days since the shootout and Kate once again found herself by Jack’s bedside.

The doctors had been hopeful that if he made it through the first forty-eight hours his chances of survival would be higher, but those hours had not passed without incident and perhaps it was Jack’s inane stubbornness that allowed him to keep fighting.

Several scans over the past few days had shown a reduction in the swelling around his brain with the doctors and nurses assuring her that the type of seizure Jack had experienced within those first forty-eight hours was considered normal with the type of injury he’d sustained.

It had terrified Kate though and it brought home once again just how easily she could lose him.

The waiting game for Jack to regain consciousness began as the doctors reduced the sedatives they’d given him to put him in a comatose state to begin with. Now it was just a matter of time and luck to see whether he would wake at all.

She kept in contact with Cody, knowing that the kid would want to be updated on any changes in Jack’s condition. Even though Cody was now living in America, he offered to get the first flight home to visit his fallen friend and former partner.

Kate told him not to bother. It wasn’t as if Jack would have any idea that any of them were sitting by his bedside anyway. There was no point in Cody rushing back when they were in a holding pattern when it came to Jack. There would be time for Cody to come home when he was awake and able to appreciate the young man’s visit.

If he ever woke up, that was.

The ventilator had been a constant presence since the surgery to remove the bullet from his brain. His blue eyes were still hidden behind eyelids that remained shut, despite the tape being removed from them a few days ago and while his skin looked less grey than it had previously, days of lying prostrate in a hospital bed had begun eating away at Jack’s powerful frame.

It would be a long and gruelling road to recovery.

If he ever recovered.

She had been over it so many times in her mind, was she really ready to stand by Jack’s side and play the loving, caring girlfriend? What would happen if he was so irrevocably changed by the injury that he needed a level of care that she couldn’t commit to? She loved Jack, but she wasn’t sure that she was ready to be a full-time carer to him.

They’d never even considered having kids, their relationship was still too volatile to even consider adding a child into the mix and Kate doubted whether she had the right amount of maternal instincts to be a good parent.

What would happen if the amount of damage Jack’s brain sustained meant that she end up looking after a fully-grown adult who needed as much help as new-born baby?

It had been the question going around and around in her mind as she sat holding his hand, part of her praying that he would wake up and the other half fearing the worst if he did. She was so lost in her thoughts she almost didn’t feel the small twitch of his right hand as she held it in her own.

“Jack, can you hear me?” She said, leaning over to look at his face.

His eyes remained closed and she began to think that she’d imagined the movement when one of his fingers twitched slightly.

Letting go of his hand, Kate called out to the nurse’s station unable to hide her nervousness as a male nurse came into the room and pressed a few buttons on one of the machines beside Jack’s bed before prying the unconscious man’s eyes open and shining his penlight in them.

“Well?” Kate said expectantly.

The nurse looked at her.

“We’ll page Dr. Franz,” he said over his shoulder and leaving the room. “He shouldn’t be too long.”

The doctor arrived within a number of minutes and repeated the same process as the nurse by flashing the light in his patient’s eyes and this time it prompted a groan from Jack as he attempted to screw his eyes shut. It was then that he became aware of the tube in his throat and he began to panic, feeling as if he were choking.

“Ok, we’ll take it out,” Dr. Franz said, nodding to one of the nurses. “I need you to breathe out as hard as you can on three, ok?”

Kate felt the relief wash over her when Jack took the first natural breaths for the first time in over ten days. His eyes remained closed but coming off of the ventilator and showing some semblance of awareness were positive signs.

They had to be.

The doctor placed an oxygen mask over his patient’s nose and mouth and opened his eyelids once more. It earned another pained groan from Jack.

“I know it’s not pleasant, Mr. Taylor,” the doctor said, allowing Jack’s eyes to close once more. “We just need to run a few tests and then we’ll let you sleep.”

Sleep? Kate thought. All Jack had done was sleep for the past two weeks. 

She watched on from the corner of the room as the doctor held Jack’s limp hand and asked him to squeeze his own. It prompted a small amount of movement.

“Ok, Mr. Taylor, I’m going to ask you a few questions and then we’ll let you rest,” the doctor said, laying Jack’s right hand on his own. “I want you to tap once for yes and twice for no, ok?”

Jack’s hand remained still.

“Tap if you understand me,” the doctor prompted.

Kate felt her breath freeze in her mouth. Would he be able to respond at all or was the damage so severe that Jack would spend the rest of his days in some sort of vegetative state?

After what seemed like hours, Jack lifted a finger and tapped once on the doctor’s hand as Kate let out the breath she’d been holding.

“Good,” the doctor said encouragingly. “Do you know where you are?”

Jack’s fingers tapped twice; his response was agonisingly slow.

“You’re in Galway General,” the doctor said. “Do you remember what happened?”

The silence in the room seemed to stretch on forever and Kate wondered if Jack had fallen back into a coma before he finally tapped twice.

“Do you know your name?”

Again, it seemed to take Jack forever to answer but he slowly tapped once on the man’s hand.

“Can you tell me what it is?”

Kate felt her heart break as Jack screwed his eyes shut, his heart rate and blood pressure climbing making it obvious that he was becoming upset.

“Ok, Mr. Taylor,” the doctor said, placing his patient’s hand back down onto the bed. “You still have a lot of medication in your system and we need to take you for some further scans and tests, so just try to relax. There’s no rush.”

Dr. Franz nodded to one of the nurses and gave them instructions that Kate couldn’t follow before gesturing for her to follow him from the room.

“What happens now?” Kate asked. “Will he be ok?”

The doctor looked at her, trying to temper her excitement and enthusiasm. His patient was far from recovered.

“We will need to run more tests and scans, but the fact that he is awake and able to respond in some form is more than we could have hoped for. Most people with his type of injury end up in a permanently vegetative state.”

“So he’ll recover? He’ll be ok?”

Dr. Franz frowned. “Recover is a relative term and it’s unlikely that he’ll recover with no long-term damage.”

“But he understood what you were asking him,” Kate prodded. “That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Dr. Franz replied. “We need to run more tests to find out how much impairment he’s suffered as a result of the injury. His lack of speech may be one of them.”

Kate felt her heart drop again.

“We’ll get MRI and CT scans run shortly and hopefully that will give us some indication as to whether intense therapy will be enough to rewire some of the damaged areas of his brain, so to speak.”

“He might be like this permanently?” Kate asked, flopping down into the nearest chair in the hospital corridor.

“I’m sorry that I don’t have a clearer answer for you,” the doctor replied. “We’ll keep running tests to try to ascertain the deficits Mr. Taylor has sustained due to the injury. We’ll then draw up a treatment plan to try to give him the best possible chances of a positive outcome.”

As the doctor walked away, Kate realised that she’d never felt so lonely in her life.


	6. 15th November

**15th November:**

No sooner had Jack kissed Kate on the cheek than she found herself being looked at expectantly as she sat opposite her lover in the booth of one of Galway’s trendier bistro diners.

“What have you got for me?” Jack asked.

She arched an eyebrow at him.

“Are you not even going to let me order my lunch first?”

The waiter cleared his throat awkwardly as he stood next to their booth, notepad and pen in hand.

“I’ll have the Caesar salad and a mineral water, thank you,” Kate said, handing her menu back to the waiter.

“And for sir?” The young man said, turning his attention to Jack.

“Sir will have the grilled cheese and steak sandwich and a Pepsi, please.”

Kate looked at him until he finally cracked under her penetrating gaze.

“What?” He said, straightening his shirt and avoiding eye contact with his girlfriend. She had a way of undoing him just by looking at him.

“Oh, nothing,” Kate said nonchalantly, “just you ordering a coronary on a plate.”

Jack grinned.

“Worried I’ll drop dead on you, Noonan?” He teased.

Kate rolled her eyes.

“I should be so lucky.”

“So, what have you got for me?” Jack prompted, gesturing toward the file in her hand.

She opened the folder and picked up the first page, reading through it before handing it over to Jack.

“Nathaniel appears to have quite the criminal record both here and in England.”

“For what?” Jack asked, taking a slurp of his drink.

“Mainly for solicitation,” Kate replied.

Jack shrugged his shoulders.

“So, he’s not big on dating and prefers to just get down to business. It’s not unusual,” Jack continued, handing the piece of paper back to Kate.

“Are you not going to ask who or what he was soliciting?”

“Young girls, I’m assuming.” 

Kate took a sip of her mineral water.

“Not quite.”

“Are we going play twenty questions all day?” Jack grumbled. “I’ve got a missing man to find.”

“That’s just it, Jack. I don’t think you’ll find this missing guy.”

“Why, is he dead?”

“In some respects,” Kate replied.

Jack rubbed at his forehead.

“Kate, will you just spit it out. Is he dead or not?”

“He was arrested in London for soliciting young transgender women. He got picked up a few times and swore all he paid them for was to chat and that nothing sexual happened between them.”

Jack seemed unfazed by the revelation.

“Jack, did you hear me? He was soliciting young women who used to be men.”

He took another slurp of his coke.

“So?”

“Transgender?” Kate repeated. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“Clearly not as much as it bothers you, Kate,” Jack scoffed.

Kate frowned. 

“The church would think it a sin.”

He barked out a laugh. “It’s been a long time since I was a good Catholic boy.”

Their conversation was halted when the waiter brought their meals over to the table.

“Who knew you were so new-age and woke,” Kate remarked sarcastically around a forkful of her salad.

Jack waved a hand dismissively.

“I couldn’t care less what he does behind closed doors. I’m not being paid to judge his lifestyle, just to find the damn guy.”

Kate swallowed a forkful of food before continuing. “Anyway, Nathaniel came back to Galway a couple of years ago and got picked up again by the Guards - “

“Let me guess,” Jack interrupted. “For solicitation?”

“The first couple of times, yeah.”

“And?” Jack prompted, sensing that Kate was still holding out on him.

“His last arrest was for indecent exposure and lewd behaviour.”

“He flash someone?”

Kate took another mouthful of food and shook her head.

“He was caught in the act with a man down an alleyway in the city centre.”

“Ok…”

“Dressed as a woman,” Kate finished, waiting for Jack’s response.

Jack took a couple of mouthfuls of his grilled sandwich.

“That explains why no one has seen Nathaniel for a while then. He probably doesn’t go by that name anymore.” He wiped his mouth on a napkin. “What name did he give when he got booked?”

“Paloma,” Kate answered, handing the mugshot to Jack.

“Paloma’s quite the looker,” Jack said, handing the picture back to Kate. “Did she leave a contact address when they let her go?”

“142 Margaret Street, Salthill,” Kate replied, wiping her own mouth on a napkin and placing her cutlery down.

“Well, at least I’ll have some place to start looking,” Jack said as he stood, pulling his wallet out and dropping enough euros on the table to cover the bill. “See you tonight?” He asked before leaving.

“Where are you going?” Kate called after him.

“I’m going to see if I can track down the lovely Paloma and have a chat with her.”

“Be careful,” Kate warned.

Jack laughed.

“Scouts honour,” he said giving her a mock salute. “See you at mine at 8?”

* * *

It had taken two bus rides and the best part of an hour and a half to get across town, but Jack let out a sigh as he wandered down yet another street, looking for any indication that he was in the near vicinity of Margaret Street.

Kate had nagged him to get a decent phone and one with ‘GPS tracking’, whatever the hell that was, so that he could use something called ‘Google Maps’. He scoffed at the notion and always preferred to use his own nouse and intuition when it came to finding his way around. Sure, that intuition had been fuelled by alcohol more often than not, but he’d got himself out of every scrape he’d ever found himself in relatively unharmed and he was confident that his luck wouldn’t run out on him any time soon.

He walked past several small shops, many of which had their wares clearly displayed in the window. Those bottles of booze were calling out to him as they sat forlornly in the shop window, begging him to come in and rescue them.

He put all thoughts of a bender out of his mind, he was turning over a new leaf. He promised himself that, this time, he would give it up for good.

Maybe he was fooling himself, but so far his stubborn approach had got him through the first few hours and the temptation of both the pub and the bistro to sink a couple of quick shots of the Jay.

The further Jack walked, the larger and more ostentatious the houses became, and it was clear that people living this far out of the city were not shy of a penny or two. Mr. Smith told him that Nathaniel had come from good breeding, maybe he’d inherited an expensive house on the hill?

But why would he have been caught bumping uglies with some random punter in a dirty alleyway? It made no sense if Nathaniel had the money to live in such an exclusive part of town, why would he need to sell his body to some desperate dope for money?

It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had given a fake address on their release papers and the Guards were hardly likely to follow up for someone who’d been charged with a relatively tame misdemeanour, not when there were drug barons and wannabe gangsters clogging up the already dirty, crime-riddled city.

The most the Guards would have done was slap Nathaniel, Paloma, on the wrist and then sniggered behind their back before turning their attention to the next waif or stray who was dragged in off the streets.

At last, Jack thought as he finally stumbled upon Margaret Street, unsurprised to see that the houses were just as large and grandiose as all the others had been.

Walking up to the gated driveway, he checked the house number Kate had given him before pressing the buzzer.

“Who is it?” A female voice asked, distorted by the crackling of the radio receiver.

“I’m looking for Paloma?” He answered, figuring that it would be best to be honest from the get-go.

“Who is asking?” The female voice asked after a brief pause. 

“I’m not the Guards,” he replied. “I’m looking for Paloma on behalf of one of her friends…Mr. Smith?”

Jack was surprised when the gate buzzed and opened.

“Then you best come in.”


	7. Present Day

**Present day:**

It had been another long five days since Jack had regained consciousness and any progress he made during that time had been agonisingly slow as far as Kate was concerned.

She’d been back at work for three days and was already sick of the pitying looks her colleagues were giving her, most of whom hadn’t ever given a flying fuck as far as Jack was concerned before the incident.

The specialists at the hospital reassured her that Jack staying awake for longer periods of time was a good thing, but the results of the scans and tests so far had been disappointing to say the least.

“Most of Mr. Taylor’s cognitive functions appear intact,” Dr. Franz had told her. “The main issue appears to be damage to the neural networks between Mr. Taylor’s brain and the rest of his body.”

Confused by the medical jargon, Kate asked the doctor to explain it in simpler terms.

“There is a chance that, given sufficient time and rehabilitation, he may be able to function almost as normal, physically speaking. The area of the brain affected also involves memory and recall, emotional responses, and decision-making.”

Kate almost snorted at that. Jack’s emotional responses and decision-making abilities had been in doubt before the bullet to the brain, what the hell kind of mess would they be after it?

“The hope is that he will be able to live a relatively normal life, for the most part…but I can’t give a timeframe on when that might be…or it could be that a partial recovery is the best we can hope for at this time.”

Steeling her courage, Kate took a deep breath before plastering a smile on her face as she entered Jack’s room, not surprised to find him awake and alert.

“Hey, look who’s up,” she said, picking his right hand up and giving it a squeeze. He returned the pressure with as much strength as he could muster as his fingers twitched around hers.

Scans had shown that while Jack had sensation and feeling in his left arm and leg, he was unable to move them in any way, nor had he been able to speak a word since he’d regained consciousness.

“I can’t say that you’re missing much,” Kate said, sitting down on the chair beside his bed. “Galway’s the same as it’s always been.”

Jack looked at her and she could see the frustration in his eyes due to his helplessness as his heart rate increased.

“It’ll get better,” she tried to reassure him.

He wasn’t convinced as he tried to squeeze her hand tighter, attempting to relay through touch alone how terrified he was of being left in such a state permanently.

“The doctor says you’ll be moved to the rehab ward soon,” Kate said, trying desperately to keep his spirits up. “You’ll be up and about chasing all the young nurses around the ward before you know it.”

Kate felt her heart break when she saw the tears in his eyes, tears he was powerless to stop from rolling down his cheeks. She felt her heart shatter when a strained moan escaped from Jack’s mouth as he desperately tried to talk, his heart rate shooting up as the machines bleeped incessantly.

She took his face in her hands, kissing his forehead just below the bandages so that he would be able to feel it.

“Hey, hey,” she said trying to calm him. “It’s ok…it doesn’t matter.”

Of course it mattered to Jack, he was the one lying there prostrate after all. He was trapped inside his own body, unable to escape and unable to make anyone understand how frightened he was.

Would she be reacting any differently if she were in his position?

Probably not, she thought to herself as a nurse came in, pushed a couple of buttons on the machine and checked her patient over.

“It’s likely to happen from time to time,” the young female nurse said, trying to sound reassuring. “ABIs often have a hard time controlling their emotions.”

It was no wonder Jack was getting upset when the people supposedly taking care of him were talking about him as if he wasn’t even there.

“ABIs?” Kate said, her tone icy.

“Acquired brain injuries,” the nurse said, oblivious to Kate’s anger.

“He’s a person, not a fucking medical condition. Why don’t you try treating him like one?” Kate ground out. 

The nurse seemed to pay attention to that. Blushing, the young woman left the room and Kate could have sworn she saw something close to mirth in Jack’s blue eyes.

* * *

With a change of scenery soon came a change of temperament and Kate was hopeful that Jack was finally making some sort of conceivable progress.

As soon as he had been admitted to the rehabilitation ward he’d been assigned a therapist who visited once a day to put him through his paces, although Kate knew that Jack would find his progress unacceptably slow as far as he was concerned.

He was up, awake and aware, and Kate wasn’t going to take that for granted any time soon, especially considering how close she had come to losing him. 

She’d managed to grab a few moments with Jack’s therapist before he finished for the day.

“How is he doing?” Kate asked as they stood outside Jack’s room.

“Well, he wants to be up and running laps around the room,” the young man replied. “It’s just baby steps for now.”

“I bet he loves that,” Kate smirked.

“We got a bit of movement in his left arm today. We’re making progress,” he reassured her.

“Not fast enough as far as Jack is concerned.”

“He’s having to relearn all of the things we take for granted and that’s a tough pill for anyone to swallow,” the young man said. “But he’s stubborn and that’ll do him the world of good in the long run.”

“Thanks, Shane,” she called over her shoulder before entering Jack’s room.

“I hear you’re practicing for the Olympics,” Kate teased him as she sat by his bedside. It earned her an eye roll for her troubles.

“Shane said you’re making good progress.”

Her words were met with Jack’s best attempt at a scowl and it was then that she noticed the pencil and paper on the tray over his chest. 

Shane, Jack’s therapist, had given her an overview of the treatment plan and told her that the main issue would be him having to relearn basic everyday skills again, writing being one of the first they’d been working on in an effort to break down the communication barriers that he was finding so hard to deal with.

With agonising effort, he picked up the pencil. Kate held the paper in place and watched as he slowly moved the pencil across the page, gripping the pencil much like a small child would. With great effort, he wrote in capital letters:

**PRICK.**

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re re-learning all the important words first,” Kate remarked dryly. “Is that aimed at him or me?”

Another inarticulate groan escaped Jack’s lips, once again reminding him of his limitations. It was enough for him to throw the pencil off the end of the bed and push the paper away. The fingers of his left hand twitched slightly as he grimaced.

Kate placed a hand on his cheek, her thumb brushing lightly over his beard which had been trimmed recently by the look of it. Walking across the room, she picked the pencil up and put it back in Jack’s hand, watching as he slowly wrote another word:

**SORRY.**

The penmanship was weak and wobbly, and the word tore at Kate’s heart as she looked at the man she loved. How could she ever think of leaving him when he was like this?

It could be months or years and he might never regain some of the basic everyday skills that he’d taken for granted before, but she couldn’t leave him to face that journey alone.

Not now.

Not ever.

“Don’t give up,” Kate sniffed through her tears before wiping at the ones running down Jack’s bearded cheeks. “We’ll get through this, ok?”

She could see his bottom lip tremble as he desperately tried to keep a lid on his emotions. Jack was hurting and he needed her, he needed her to be strong for him like he had when she had her mastectomy. Even when she pushed him away, he never gave up on her, no matter how hard she tried to make him leave her.

Jack would probably do the same as he got angry at his current predicament but at least his anger would be better than moping and feeling sorry for himself. Drowning in self-pity wasn’t going to make his progress any quicker and no doubt he’d want to give up a hundred times over, but Kate promised herself that she wouldn’t let him, no matter how angry he got or how many insults he threw her way. She would soak them all up and come back looking for more, much in the way Jack did every time they broke up.

He never stopped believing in her and she knew for certain now that she would never stop believing in him either. If it was just them against the world, then so be it. They would get through this together, just like they always had.


	8. 15th November

**15th November:**

Jack was surprised to find the front door already open by the time he made it up the long garden path.

“Thank you, Mrs?” Jack asked, stepping over the threshold and into the hallway.

“O’Donaghue,” the woman answered.

Must be Siobhan, Jack thought to himself. The woman looked nothing like the mugshot of ‘Paloma’ that Kate had shown him.

“I appreciate you seeing me,” Jack said as the woman took him through to what posh folk always called a ‘drawing room’.

The woman nodded.

“May I get you something to drink?” She offered, her tone clipped and at odds with her behaviour in the few short moments Jack had spent with her. “Tea, coffee…something stronger?”

Jack fumbled with the sides of his coat as he sat down.

“Coffee would be grand, thank you,” he answered, knowing that women and alcohol were never a good combination where he was concerned.

Mrs. O’Donaghue nodded.

“I shan’t be a moment,” she said, leaving the room and giving Jack an opportunity to look at the dozens of framed photographs adorning the walls.

Most of them were of what he assumed to be Mrs. O’Donaghue and her husband, but there were several where a youngish looking man scowled as she draped her arm around his shoulders…one who had more than a passing resemblance to ‘Paloma’.

Jack’s eyes landed on the photos in the farthest corner of the room and instead of a scowling young man standing next to Siobhan O’Donaghue was a fairly attractive woman that could be none other than the elusive Paloma.

Mrs. O’Donaghue handed Jack a cup of steaming black coffee. “You say you’re looking for Paloma?”

“Do you know where I might find her?” Jack asked. It was a tried and tested technique of answering a question with one of his own. It remained to be seen as to what the intentions of this woman were, and he knew better than to show his hand too soon.

“That depends on why you’re asking,” Mrs. O’Donaghue replied. “Some people don’t have Paloma’s best interests at heart, Mr?”

“Taylor. Jack Taylor.”

“And what are your intentions, Mr. Taylor?”

Jack frowned. It was obvious that Siobhan O’Donaghue had probably had one or more dealings with the Guards about Paloma and her extra-curricular activities.

“I’ve been asked to look into the whereabouts of a Nathaniel O’Donaghue.”

The mention of Paloma’s former name caused a momentary twitch from the woman sitting opposite Jack.

She attempted to recover her composure, but the brief lapse hadn’t been missed by Jack.

“And you say a Mr. Smith has asked you to look for Nathaniel?”

Jack shrugged.

“Says he’s concerned about his welfare and hasn’t heard from Nathaniel from for a while. I have no reason to disbelieve him.”

The woman gave him a searching look.

“And how much do you know about this Mr. Smith?” She asked.

The way she was looking at him was beginning to make Jack feel uncomfortable.

“I didn’t ask for his life story. He asked me to find Nathaniel and your name came up in my enquiries.”

“I thought you weren’t a Guard?”

Jack could feel himself getting frustrated. Maybe he should have asked for a shot of the Jay instead of a coffee.

“I’m not,” he replied, trying to keep his tone even. “People pay me to find things…or people.”

Again, she gave him a searching look that made Jack want to fidget uncomfortably. What was she trying to do, interrogate him?

“And are you good at finding things?”

Jack resisted the urge to answer that. He was good at finding trouble and a never-ending source of booze, but the rest? That was still a matter of whose opinion you sought.

“Look, I’m not trying to kick up any dirt or get anyone in any trouble, I’m just looking for the man that Mr. Smith has paid me to find.”

“You won’t find Nathaniel,” Mrs. O’Donaghue said after a long pause. “He no longer exists.”

“Because he now goes by the name of Paloma?”

The woman looked at him with some surprise.

Granted, he’d never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he could see the resemblance between Nathaniel and Paloma.

“You’re not a fool it would seem,” Mrs. O’Donaghue observed.

Jack tried not to take that as an insult and besides, he’d been called much worse in his life.

“Well, I try my best,” he replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “I understand that you want to protect Paloma, but I’m not the enemy.”

“No, but every God-fearing Catholic is,” Mrs. O’Donaghue replied.

Jack snorted at that. 

“One of them, I ain’t,” he said, knocking back the rest of his coffee and feeling it burn the back of his throat. “I don’t care what Nathaniel or Paloma does, it’s none of my business.”

“And yet you want to know their whereabouts,” the woman observed.

They were going round in circles and Jack found himself getting irritated. Was this stuck-up bint getting off on yanking his chain?

He got up quickly.

“I won’t take up any more of your time, Mrs. O’Donaghue,” he said as he made his way to the front door. He wasn’t getting anywhere with her. “Here’s my card, ask Paloma to call me.”

The woman looked at Jack and then to the card and back again as she watched him leave, calling out to him after he’d stepped back over the threshold.

“There’s a bar called the Yew Tree. Paloma is there most nights.”

Jack nodded his head, not bothering to thank her as he walked away.

* * *

“Aww, Jack, you shouldn’t have,” Kate said dryly as he handed her half of the takeaway curry he bought them for dinner. “Look at all the trouble you’ve gone to.”

She was busting his balls and he’d already had enough of it from the irritating Mrs. O’Donaghue. He didn’t need more of it from his girlfriend, too.

“I thought you’d prefer it over my over-cooked chicken,” he retorted, handing her a knife and fork. “How was your day?” He asked, trying to change the subject.

“Better than yours I’m guessing,” Katie replied, tucking into her food, “if your face is anything to go by.”

He scowled at her but said nothing, taking a gulp of water as the fiery curry threatened to set his mouth on fire. God, he could do with a drink right about now.

She was expecting him to bite. 

He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

He smiled when Kate finally relented.

“Caught up on a few cases, chased down a few perps.”

“Perps, Kate?” He snorted. “You been watching too much CSI again?”

Kate rolled her eyes.

“It’s what Cody keeps calling them every time I speak to him. He’s thinking about setting up his own PI business over there.”

The mere mention of Cody’s name felt like a knife in his heart. The poor kid had nearly died, and it had been all Jack’s fault. He should have told Cody to sling his hook the moment the doe-eyed idiot approached him, but he let him in…he started to care about the kid, and he should have learned by now that it was always the ones around him that paid the price wherever Jack Taylor was concerned.

“You been talking to Cody, huh?” He said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“He says you’ve been ignoring his calls and letters.”

He could feel Kate’s eyes boring into him. Coward that he was, he kept his eyes on his cutlery instead. It was better that Cody went off and lived his own life instead of getting caught up in the almighty shit-show that Jack’s life was.

Thankfully, Kate decided to change the subject.

“So how was your day?” She asked around a forkful of rice. “Did you find Paloma?”

Jack shook his head.

“The cousin, Siobhan…she wasn’t exactly forthcoming with any details when it came to Paloma.”

“Well that’s a shitter,” Kate replied. “Have you got any other leads?”

Jack swallowed another mouthful of curry before answering.

“She gave me the name of a bar. A place called the Yew Tree. Ever heard of it?”

Kate laughed. “It’s not the kind of place you’d feel at home in.”

Jack pulled a face.

“Don’t tell me it’s one of those shitholes where they make you cook your own food and pour your own drinks?”

Kate shook her head.

“No, but you’ll stick out in there like a steak at a vegan convention. You planning on going there?”

Jack bristled at the insult.

“Not tonight, obviously.”

“Maybe send Darragh instead?” Kate suggested.

“Would I really stick out that badly?”

The look Kate gave him spoke volumes.

Reluctantly, Jack pulled his phone from his trouser pocket and dialled Darragh’s number.


	9. Present Day

**Present day:**

Kate walked through the sterile hallways in a routine that was becoming all too familiar as she made her way to Jack’s hospital room. His progress on the rehabilitation ward was still desperately slow as far as Jack was concerned, but Kate knew he was getting stronger with each day that passed, even if the stubborn fool couldn’t see it for himself.

It was Christmas Eve and after finishing her shift at the station, Kate made a detour for a quick shower at home, before grabbing the gift from the dining table and making her way to the hospital.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Shane said, re-clipping several wires and tubes that Jack would probably think he could already do without. “We’re almost done here,” the man said amiably as Jack continued to scowl at him.

“I see you’re in the Christmas spirit already,” she said to Jack, smiling when he provided her with a dirty look in response to her gentle teasing.

Once Shane was done, Kate placed the wrapped gift in Jack’s lap.

“I know you’re not big on Christmas and gifts, but tough,” she said, daring him to argue the point as he looked at her before carefully removing the wrapping paper. Kate smiled when she saw him using his left arm as well as his right. The movement on the left side of his body was still clumsy and slow, but it was progress and a vast improvement from when he’d woke from his coma several weeks ago.

Jack smiled and nodded his head as he looked at the box in his hands, inside of which was a brand new Kindle.

“I added several books I thought you might like,” Kate said, making herself comfortable on the chair by the bed. She knew that he had little else apart from his daily rehabilitation therapy to keep his sharp mind occupied and that Jack and boredom were a terrible combination. Granted, he wouldn’t be able to get up to much mischief in his current condition, but Kate knew better than to bet against Jack finding trouble, even in here.

“Jack, aren’t you going to give Kate her gift?” Shane asked from the doorway, which earned him another scowl from his patient.

Kate looked around, expecting to see a gift hidden away somewhere. She looked at Jack expectantly.

“Hi….Kate.”

The words were choppy and slurred, but by God, they were words and the first one’s she’d heard from Jack since the fateful night of the shoot-out.

“We’ve been working on it for a while,” Shane said.

“You’ve been talking, and you didn’t tell me?” She asked Jack as she looked at his sheepish expression.

“It’s only one or two words,” Shane said. “But it’s a start.”

Kate launched herself at Jack and kissed him soundly on the lips.

“You old romantic,” she playfully admonished him. “Guess I was the first thing on your mind, huh?”

“The first word he managed was ‘fuck’ actually,” Shane interjected with a grin. “It’s best to start with the words and names that have the strongest association in the brain.”

Kate rolled her eyes. How very Jack Taylor to think of the word ‘fuck’. No doubt it was the first word he’d learned as a boy, too.

“I’ll be off then,” Shane said as Jack continued to shoot daggers at him with his eyes.

Kate poured herself a cup of water, at a loss for what else to do in the silence in the room. Jack had uttered a few words, but he was hardly at a point where he could hold a proper conversation yet.

“You been keeping yourself busy in here?” She asked, holding his right hand in her own and smiling that his grip was stronger than it had been on her previous visit. Still, he was frustrated by the lack of independence and she could see it eating away at him day by day.

There were days when he would let his emotions get the better of him, throwing anything within range around the room and then there were days when his attitude was apathetic at best with the lack of motivation to relearn even the most basic skills leaving him in a self-pitying torpor.

Jack had always let his emotions get the better of him even before the shooting, but at least he now had a valid reason to blame them on and one that wasn’t the by-product of a self-destructive alcoholic bender.

In a room with no windows, he had nothing else to keep him occupied other than watching people walk back and forth past his room all the while cursing them for being able to move freely when he couldn’t.

“It’s snowing outside,” Kate said, trying to make some sort of conversation, but it was hard going when only one of them had full use of their vocabulary.

Well, it was news worth mentioning, anyway. Usually, the only thing the weather did in Galway was to piss it down with rain.

“Merry Christmas, Jack,” she said, tears pricking at her eyes as he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles and looked at her tenderly.

How could she have ever thought of leaving him like this?

“Next year, you’re going to owe me one hell of a gift,” she teased him. “And not one you bought at the last minute from the off-license.”

This year’s gift would take some topping, mind. She’d never been so glad to hear Jack’s voice as she had today.

She expected some sort of frown, grimace or wiggling of Jack’s eyebrows, but she suddenly felt nervous as he appeared to stare straight through her and his grip on her hand became almost painful.

“Jack?” She said, her eyes darting to the call button. She hit it just as the first convulsion took control of his body. Moments later, two nurses ran into the room and Kate found herself pushed outside and into the corridor.

Standing in the hallway listening to medical staff talking back and forth over Jack’s body for what seemed like hours, the door finally opened.

“What’s happened?” Kate asked the first person her eyes landed on.

“Mr. Taylor’s had a number of convulsive seizures,” the doctor replied. “There’s no indication that any further bleeding or swelling to the brain has caused it, but we’re going take him for a CT scan and MRI just to be sure,” he continued as the two nurses pushed Jack’s bed from the room. “We’ll bring him back as soon as we can.”

She’d almost fallen asleep in the hard, plastic chair in the corridor by the time they’d returned Jack to his room and reconnected the wires and tubes. Sensing her concern, the doctor beckoned Kate into the room.

“The scans show nothing to be concerned about,” the doctor told her as he made a note on the chart at the end of the bed.

“But what about the seizures?” Kate asked. Surely they weren’t normal, were they?

“They’re an unfortunate by-product of Mr. Taylor’s brain injury, I’m afraid. It’s likely he’ll experience a number of them for the rest of his life.”

Oh Jack would hate that, she knew.

“We’ve given him something which should help to control the frequency and severity,” the doctor continued, and it was then that Kate realised Jack’s eyes were open and vacant as he stared at the ceiling.

“We’ve had to give him a pretty strong dose to stop the seizures in their tracks,” the doctor explained as he clicked his pen and returned it to his shirt pocket.

“Can I stay with him?” Kate asked.

The doctor frowned. “We generally don’t allow people to stay outside of visiting hours, but it would be preferable to have someone he knows with him if he becomes confused or agitated. I’ll get someone to bring you a more comfortable chair.”

Kate nodded her gratitude, steeling herself for what would no doubt be a long night ahead.

* * *

She had obviously fallen asleep at some point during the night as the first thing Kate heard was the door to Jack’s room opening and a male nurse looking at her apologetically.

“Sorry for waking you,” he said. “We can come back later.”

Kate rubbed at her face and straightened herself in the chair.

“What time is it?”

The nurse looked at his watch.

“A little after seven,” he replied with a smile. “You fell asleep not long after he did,” he motioned to Jack.

“How long?” Kate asked.

“About four hours,” the nurse replied.

She pulled herself wearily to her feet.

“I’m sorry, I’m probably getting in your way,” she said as she made to leave the room.

“No need,” the nurse replied. “You both look like you needed the rest. We’ll come back in a couple of hours to do our morning rounds.”

“I probably shouldn’t even still be here,” Kate said, running a hand through her hair.

“He’s lucky,” the nurse replied as he looked at Jack’s sleeping form. “Most patients here are fortunate if anyone visits them on a monthly basis and some don’t get any visitors at all. He’s lucky to have you and the young man that comes in most days.”

“Darragh,” Kate answered. “He’s my cousin.”

It was pretty pathetic by anyone’s standards at how few friends and family Jack truly had. Granted, he’d pushed most of them away all by himself, but there was something about Jack that got beneath a person’s skin and even though he was a train wreck, there was something about him that Kate just couldn’t let go of. 

It wasn’t guilt or pity that kept Kate returning to the hospital day after day, it was the love she had for this complicated, infuriating and self-destructive man. There was no point denying it any longer, she loved him, faults and all.

His many, _many_ faults and all.


	10. 16th November

**16th November:**

“Are we clear on the plan?” Jack asked as he sat in the passenger seat of Darragh’s car.

“You want me to go in there, check to see if Paloma is around,” Darragh confirmed. “I think I can handle that.”

Jack rolled his eyes at his young counterpart.

“Just don’t fuck it up,” Jack called out to the retreating form of Darragh as the young man made his way down the street and into the Yew Tree bar.

Dressed in a smart black suit and with his hair neatly combed, Darragh looked every inch the kind of yuppy that frequented bars like the Yew Tree. All the women wore figure-hugging but still socially acceptable dresses and the men wore suits with shirts and ties. Even on his best day, Jack would stick out like a sore thumb in this kind of place.

Darragh made his way to the bar, scanning the room for Paloma. Having seen a couple of pictures of her, it would be easy to spot a six foot tall woman in a place like this, especially when so many of the other women barely scraped five feet, even with their high heels on.

“Sparkling mineral water, please,” Darragh said, a ten euro note in his hand. “Keep the change,” he smiled as the barman cocked an eyebrow at him. It was Jack’s money after all.

He cast a surreptitious glance around the room, looking for any sign of Paloma. It took several minutes, but his eyes finally landed on the tall, blonde woman who stood in the far corner of the room with a shady-looking man. Darragh looked away quickly when the man made eye contact with him.

“Shit,” he said, cursing under his breath and turning back towards the bar. The man he’d made eye contact with would probably beat seven shades of shit out of him after the look he’d just given him.

Keep cool, keep cool, he told himself, sipping nervously at his drink.

“I haven’t seen you around here before,” a deep yet sultry voice said from Darragh’s left side. The accent was distinctly English.

Darragh risked a glance to his left, finding Paloma standing next to him as she leaned over the bar and gave him an appraising look.

“I’m new around here,” Darragh replied, hoping that Paloma wouldn’t push him further on it.

“New to Galway or new to bars like this?”

Darragh frowned before answering. “Both?”

“What brings you here?” Paloma asked, ordering herself another drink and winking at the barman as she handed him her money.

“I heard the nightlife here was interesting,” Darragh replied. He had no idea what that meant and after glancing over his shoulder briefly his every instinct was still to bolt for the door. The man Paloma was with continued staring at him.

Paloma let out a laugh as she stirred the olive in her martini glass.

“And what is it that you’ve heard about our nightlife?”

Darragh could feel the heat rising to his cheeks. He was no good at this kind of thing, it was better for him to leave of his own volition while he still had the chance.

Gulping down the rest of his drink, Darragh made to leave, only to find Paloma gently grabbing his wrist.

“We cater for every kind of kink here,” she told him. “If you change your mind, just come back and ask for Paloma.”

Darragh nodded his head. “Paloma? Ok, got it.”

He shot from the bar as quickly as his legs could carry him, half expecting to hear the heavy footsteps of Paloma’s male friend coming up behind him.

Darragh jumped back into the driver’s seat of the car and let out a deep breath.

“Well?” Jack asked, seemingly oblivious to his young friend’s distress. “Did you find Paloma?”

Darragh swallowed deeply, trying to get his breathing back under control. They could still see the entrance to the bar from where the car was parked.

“You could say that,” Darragh replied.

“And?” Jack prodded, lighting a cigarette.

“You asked me to see if she was in there and I did.”

Jack blew out a ring of smoke.

“Did you talk to her?”

Darragh opened the car window in an effort to get rid of the noxious fumes.

“She came up to me.”

“For fuck’s sake, Darragh, are you going to make me drag it out of you?”

Darragh straightened his tie and fidgeted in his seat.

“She said that they catered to all sorts of kinks in that bar.”

Jack grinned; his eyes full of mirth.

“Did she now?” Jack replied. “You reckon they go for intellectual twats like you, too?”

Jack spotted a tall, blonde-haired woman leave the bar before fishing in her purse and lighting a cigarette. He opened his window and called out to her, catching her attention before motioning her to come over to the car.

“Jesus, Jack. What the hell are you doing?” Darragh growled under his breath as he tried to sink further into his seat.

“Seeing what kind of kinks the lovely Paloma is into,” Jack replied as Paloma made her way over to the car and leaned into the passenger window.

“Changed your mind?” She said to Darragh as she blew smoke through her nose.

“Forgive my friend here, he’s a priest,” Jack answered for him. “And a virgin.”

Paloma looked Jack up and down.

“And what’s your story, mister?”

Her voice was deliberately sultry as she looked at Jack with seductive eyes.

“Come again?”

“What gets you off?” Paloma clarified. “You look like a man who likes it rough,” she observed.

“You want to know what my kink is?” Jack asked.

Paloma nodded her head.

“Finding missing people,” he answered. “That really gets my motor running. You wouldn’t happen to know the whereabouts of a Nathaniel O’Donaghue, would you?”

Paloma stood back from the car as if she’d been burned, throwing her cigarette to the ground before crushing it with her high-heeled shoe.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you,” she said as she walked away.

Jack jumped out of the car and followed her, ignoring the warning from Darragh that he was surely asking for trouble.

Jogging to catch up with her, Jack grabbed her arm, forcing Paloma to turn around and face him.

She tried to shrug herself free from his grip.

“Mr. North won’t be happy if you don’t let go of me,” she said as Jack held firm.

“Who’s this Mr. North then?” Jack asked.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Paloma replied. “And he’s a very dangerous man. You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.”

Still, Jack refused to let go, his eyes roaming across Paloma’s chest. She’d clearly had work done there, but it was unlikely that she’d gone the whole hog and had her other male parts removed considering she’d only transitioned a matter of months ago.

“Does Mr. North know that you’re packing heat downstairs?” Jack asked.

Finally, Paloma managed to wrench herself free from his grip.

“That’s how he likes it,” she replied. “He likes being dominated by a woman…a woman who has particular attributes.”

Jack was no expert when it came to anything other than heterosexual sex, but even he could join the dots and figure out that the mysterious Mr. North liked his women with a penis.

“Look, I really don’t care what you and your boyfriend get up to behind closed doors and neither do I care if you’re tucking your cock between your legs and giving blow jobs to any man with a few euros in his pocket.”

His words were cruel but served to tell Jack that he’d hit the mark when it came to Paloma’s chequered past.

“Then what is it that you want?” Paloma asked tiredly. “What interest am I to you?”

Jack pulled out the photographs that Mr. Smith had provided him with.

“Someone is worried about Nathaniel. Your friend Mr. Smith asked me to look for him.”

Paloma’s eyes twitched almost imperceptibly at the mention of the man’s name.

“Tell him that you couldn’t find him. Nathaniel no longer exists; he died several months ago.”

Jack rubbed at his beard.

“I don’t think that will satisfy Mr. Smith. He’s not the kind of man who takes no for an answer.”

Paloma let out a humourless laugh.

“You don’t know the half of it,” she replied bitterly. “You really have no idea of what Mr. Smith is capable of.”

“Look, if you’re in some kind of trouble…maybe I can help,” Jack replied.

Paloma gave him a sad smile. “I don’t think you can help me…no one can.” She drew another cigarette from her purse and lit it. “How much did Mr. Smith pay you to find Nathaniel?”

More than was reasonable for such a job, Jack thought to himself. Was there more to Mr. Smith and his interest in Nathaniel than just searching for a missing friend?

Fishing in his pocket, Jack pulled out one of the cards that Cody had printed back when they were partners. He felt a pang of pain tug at his heart as he saw the young man’s name.

“Look, if you change your mind…give me a call. Maybe I can help.”

Paloma eyed it suspiciously.

“If you really want to help, tell Mr. Smith that you couldn’t find me. Give him back whatever he paid you and never think about me again.”


	11. Present Day

**Present day:**

As Christmas passed and moved into the new year Jack’s condition continued to improve and he was making progress. 

Slow, agonising progress.

He had progressed from hardly being able to use his left arm at all to having some real semblance of control over it, rather than the clumsy movement of before. Fine motor movements were a way off yet, the therapist had assured them, but Jack had the use of two arms and an increasing number of words.

Shane warned them that Jack would need to build his upper body strength before they could even start thinking about him learning to walk again. It was news that went down about as well as a wet fart in a lift as far as Jack was concerned and he made his feelings on the matter abundantly clear.

“Fuck this,” Jack growled slowly as Shane encouraged him to keep sitting forward in the bed. He could feel the sweat dripping off his nose.

Since when had sitting up in bed been so bloody hard?

It was then that Jack would curse his fucked-up life and his godforsaken existence.

Sure, he’d not lead the most angelic of lives, but he certainly didn’t deserve the punishment of being trapped in a body that barely worked anymore. It was only now that he was stuck in much the same position that he could understand how frustrated his mother had been after her stroke.

At least she’d not had to suffer it for long. There would be no such relief for Jack. He’d be stuck in this useless excuse for a body for years. It was just how his luck went - he never had any to begin with.

“Cock…sucker.”

The words were still slightly slurred and Jack ground them out through gritted teeth, but his therapist only smiled at the insult, having grown immune to his patient’s irritability.

“Aww, Jack, you always say the sweetest things to me,” Shane replied as he helped Jack to finally lie back down on his hospital bed before handing him a towel to dry off with.

“That’s ten minutes we managed today,” the therapist said, looking at his watch for confirmation. “Make it to twenty and we’ll think about getting you a sexy set of wheels.”

Jack grunted in response. The ultimate humiliation would be complete once they sat him in a wheelchair and took him to the rehab rooms. Stuck in his hospital room, he could hide away from prying eyes but being wheeled down a corridor would put him on full display with his pathetic body free for all and sundry to see.

Sure, just because he’d managed to use his left arm and speak a few words, there was no guarantee that he would ever be able to walk again. It didn’t bear thinking about, having someone help him in and out of bed each day, wiping his arse and lifting him off the toilet, especially Kate.

Kate, for fuck’s sake.

There was no way he was going to let her waste her life looking after him. No matter how much it hurt, he’d break things off with her, knowing that she had so much of her life left to live. She didn’t need to spend it looking after his sorry arse.

Hardly being able to move had left him with far too much time to consider his lot in life and the thought that Kate was only staying with him out of some sense of pity had crossed his mind more than once or twice since he’d regained consciousness.

It was at times like these that he wished he could reach for the bottle of the Jay and lament his shitty lot in life, but at least they were still pumping enough narcotics into his system that he no longer needed to worry about drinking himself to sleep each night. Whatever they were giving him packed a punch and for the most part helped with the agonising pain in his head.

The neurologist had given him some bullshit about how it was ‘normal’ with brain injuries and along with the seizures, it would be something he’d be expected to live with. Knowing that a seizure could come over him at any or time or that a headache of nuclear proportions could bring him to his knees at a moment’s notice did not make Jack’s continued existence all that promising a prospect.

He closed his eyes as Shane hovered around him reconnecting wires and tubes, hoping that the man would get the hint and fuck off and leave him alone.

“I’ll leave you to your brooding then,” Shane remarked, making his way to the door. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re really making progress.”

 _Just fuck off, you jaunty little shit-head!_ Jack cursed internally. Maybe if he pressed the call button the nurses would give him another hit of narcotics so that he could pretend, for a few hours at least, that he wasn’t stuck in this goddamn nightmare.

He let out a sigh of relief as he heard the door close and he let his eyes fall shut, willing the tears not to leak from his eyes. People could come and go from his room as they pleased , and all the while he was stuck in a hospital bed with a barely functioning body.

He’d never wanted a drink so badly in his life.

Minutes later, he heard the door to his room open again and he was stuck between feigning sleep or throwing the rubber ball that he was meant to use as part of his rehab at the unfortunate fucker who had walked into his room at exactly the wrong time.

“Jack, you awake?”

His heart sank upon hearing Kate’s voice. She was exactly the person he didn’t want seeing him like this. He kept his eyes closed and he could hear her walking to his bedside.

“Are ignoring me?”

He could hear the tired resignation in her tone as she pulled the chair closer to his bed and held his hand.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Tired.”

Stringing more than a few words together in a sentence had never been this hard before, even when he’d been on one of his epic week-long benders.

“I’ve brought someone to see you,” she continued, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb.

Great, exactly what he didn’t need.

Fucking hell, the hospital might as well sell tickets so that everyone could come and mock the afflicted. He was pretty sure he’d pissed enough people off in his time that there would be a queue for days to come and see what a sorry state he was in.

He kept his eyes closed. If he ignored Kate for long enough she would get the message and take whoever her friend was with her. He wanted to lay in the dark to brood and lament, it was his birth right, after all.

“Ah, come on now, Skip,” a familiar male voice said. “I’ve come all this way to see you.”

He’d come up with a lot of worst-case scenarios while laying helpless in bed, but even his fucked-up brain hadn’t gotten quite so far as to the ultimate humiliation of having Cody come to visit him.

He tried desperately to bite back the sob that was choking him but once again his useless fucking body failed him.

Before he knew what was happening, Cody was sitting on the side of his bed and pulling him into a hug. The floodgates opened, and Jack was powerless to stop himself from falling apart in the other man’s arms.

Sensing that three was a crowd, Kate silently left the room and left them to it.

He had no idea how long he had cried for but at some point a wave of exhaustion hit him, and Jack found himself being slowly lowered back down into the comforting embrace of the pillows on his bed.

He ran a shaky hand over his haggard features and looked at the man he loved like a son.

“Sorry,” Jack said, his eyes lowered to gaze at his useless hands as they lay in his lap.

He’d always been prone to emotional outbursts throughout his life but taking a bullet to the brain only meant that such outbursts became even more uncontrollable and unpredictable.

“What’re you doing here?” Jack mumbled, his mouth stumbling over the formation of his words.

Cody looked at him, still the eager little puppy that he’d always been, despite almost losing his own life a few years previously.

“To see you, Skip,” Cody answered. “I would have come sooner but Kate said…”

Cody’s voice trailed off, remembering the call he’d received from Kate the night of the shooting. He could remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday. She had told him to stay in the US until they knew for certain whether Jack would survive. Those days and weeks when Cody checked his phone a thousand times or more were some of the longest he could remember.

“We’ll get you back up on your feet in no time, just you wait, Skipper.”

Jack doubted very much that would be true.


	12. 19th November

**19th November:**

“Kate, I’m going to be a bit late for dinner. Paloma called and asked me to meet her,” Jack said into his mobile phone as he walked toward the Yew Tree. “I’ll let you know when I’m on my way.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” She replied.

It had been three days since Jack first met with Paloma and her parting words warned him never to think about her again, and yet here she was asking to meet him outside the Yew Tree bar.

“Pushing back our dinner date?” He teased.

Kate sighed. “You know what I mean. Don’t you think it’s bit strange that she’s suddenly calling you now? What’s so urgent?”

Kate had a point. He heard nothing but radio silence from Paloma for days and Mr. Smith was already hassling him for an update.

“Maybe it’s the luck of the Irish,” he said with a chuckle as he approached the entrance to the bar. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Luck had never been his friend, but fuck it, maybe he was due a bit of it. He closed his phone and put it in the pocket of his all-weather Garda coat.

Reaching the bar, Jack looked around, frowning when Paloma was nowhere to be seen. 

And then he heard her voice.

“Over here, Mr. Taylor.”

The voice was coming from a darkened alleyway beside the bar. That alone should have been enough to set alarm bells ringing.

When someone drew you into a darkened alleyway, it usually wasn’t to pass the time of day.

He stood just outside the alleyway, the light emanating from the bar casting him in a golden glow. He might be a useless, alcoholic ex-cop, but he wasn’t a complete fool.

“Why don’t you come out here where we can talk properly?” Jack suggested.

”No one can know I’m here,” Paloma whispered, a hint of panic in her voice. “If anyone sees me… my body will end up in a ditch somewhere.”

Jack frowned. Was she telling the truth?

“Please, Mr. Taylor,” Paloma continued. “You said to call you if I needed help… Please, I need your help.”

He stood at the far end of the alley, debating what to do next. Paloma was probably luring him into a trap, but what if she was genuine? What if she really did need his help?

He knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he saw her death in the local newspaper. He couldn’t stand the thought of yet another death on his conscience. 

There had been far too many already.

He’d only made it a few steps into the alley before he realised his mistake.

It was a trap.

There was a flurry of fists and feet as Jack found himself on the ground, trying to curl up in a ball to stop the worst of those blows reaching anywhere that would cause serious harm. He lost track of time and the amount of feet that flew his way before it suddenly stopped and he felt a booted foot roll him onto his back. Blood was streaming from a cut above his eye, but he assumed it was Mr. North who stood over him with his grip on Paloma’s arm looking painfully tight. There were bruises on her face that not even makeup could hide and the way she was looking at him told Jack that she’d not been a willing participant in this particular charade.

“You tell Mr. Smith to stay the hell away from Paloma, you understand me?”

Jack’s ears were ringing as black spots clouded his vision, he opened his mouth but could only manage a groan in response. 

It earned another swift kick from Mr. North.

“Both of you, stay away from her,” Mr. North warned, his gruff tone had a familiar Galway lilt to it. He was a local to these parts, that much was obvious. “Next time I won’t ask so nicely.”

Jacks’ ears were ringing more loudly this time and he could feel the world starting to spin. The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was Paloma whispering softly to him as they dragged her from the alley.

“I’m sorry.”

* * *

Kate tapped her fingers on the arm of the couch nervously. Despite her concerns, Jack had gone to the Yew Tree to meet with Paloma and his choice had not sat well with her.

She had a bad feeling about this one and it was always Jack’s luck to get himself into trouble.

Mind made up, she called Darragh and asked for the address of the bar before running to her car.

Wary of walking into a trap herself, Kate parked her car a couple of streets away and walked cautiously toward the garish fronting of the Yew Tree. Only a few feet away from the entrance, she pulled out her phone and dialled Jack’s number.

Her heart sank when she heard his ringtone echoing from the dark alleyway beside the bar.

“Jack?” She called out, taking a step into the darkened alley. 

She heard his quiet groan as he whispered her name.

Throwing caution to the wind, she ran into the darkness, almost stumbling over him as he lay on the floor.

“Jesus, Jack,” she said, crouching down to check on him. “What the hell happened?”

He rolled onto his side and spat out the blood that had been filling his mouth.

“Mr. North happened,” he wheezed, feeling the tell-tale twinge of bruised ribs.

Kate flipped her phone open.

“Stay still, I’ll call an ambulance.”

He reached out a bloodied hand.

“Don’t,” he told her. “Just help me up.”

She closed her phone reluctantly.

“Can you even walk?” She challenged him.

He tried to let out a huff but ended up groaning instead.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said. The pain radiating through his body was making him more than a little cranky. “Just help me up, will you?”

“And take you where?” She asked. 

“Anywhere that doesn’t smell of rats and piss,” he grumbled, biting down on a yell as Kate helped to pull him to his feet.

She was never going to win the fight with Jack in this sort of mood. Maybe he would change his mind once they started walking back to her car and the pain really began to set in. Jack was a prideful man, but he wasn’t immune to the throbbing pain that came with a beating.

“Fine,” she said with a sigh as they hobbled slowly towards her car. “Just don’t bleed on my seats. I’ve only just bought the damn car.”

* * *

Jack looked even worse in the harsh light of her lounge as he sat gingerly on the end of her sofa. She grabbed her first aid kit and began looking him over. There was a nasty gash above his right eye with the flesh below already purpling and swelling. There was blood still dripping from his nose, but Jack assured her it wasn’t broken, telling her he’d broken it enough times already to know.

The rest of his face was a mass of smaller cuts and bruising and she found much the same when she gently unbuttoned his shirt and felt around his ribs.

“Jesus fecking Christ, warn me next time, will ya?” He yelped. His eyes had been closed before she’d touched his ribs, but they shot open when she pressed on what looked like a particularly sore area.

She sat back on her haunches, a worried look on her face.

“Maybe we should take you to a hospital. There could be something broken.”

He suddenly felt bad for snapping at her, but his head was pounding and all he wanted was to fall into the blissful numbness of unconsciousness. 

He reached out a bloodied hand and squeezed her arm gently before feeling fresh blood dripping from the cut above his eye.

She brought a tissue to his forehead and wiped the blood away before sticking butterfly stitches over the gash.

“It probably needs proper stitches,” she said, assessing her own handiwork.

He waved her concern away.

“Gals love guys with scars, don’t they?”

Only Jack could think of sex at a time like this.

“How many more do you want?” She retorted.

He carried enough scars even before she knew him, but had added several more over the past few years. The man was a literal walking encyclopaedia of war wounds, but it didn’t make him any less handsome in her eyes.

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and regretted it immediately. The pounding in his head was getting worse and he knew that if he didn’t lie down soon, his body would drag him down to the ground whether he liked it or not.

Kate could sense that the adrenaline was wearing off and the pain of the beating had really started kicking in. Wordlessly, she helped Jack to his feet, and together they hobbled toward her bedroom.

“Can’t get enough of me?” He chuckled, his ribs twinging in protest as she lowered him to the bed and started undressing him.

“Get your mind out of your trousers and do as you’re told,” she retorted, pushing the covers back before reaching into her bedside cabinet and popping out three of the pain pills she had left over from her mastectomy.

“But it’s the only bit of me that doesn’t hurt,” he replied quietly.

In that moment, she saw the sad, scared little boy he tried so hard to hide most of the time. To the outside world, Jack was a boorish, drunken mess who had a habit of letting trouble find him wherever he went. But there were so many more layers to this complicated, difficult man that few people ever bothered to see.

She handed him a glass of water and instructed him to drink it before pushing him down to the pillows. The pills she gave him were powerful and would knock him out within minutes.

She sat on the side of the bed, watching as his eyes grew heavier and slowly drifted shut. The pills were pulling him to the comforting darkness of unconsciousness and she almost didn’t hear him whisper.

“I’m sorry, I should have listened to you.”

Jack Taylor admitting fault? Would wonders never cease?


	13. Present Day

**Present day:**

“Ah come on now, Skip,” Cody frowned, admonishing his old partner. “You’re not flaking out on me this soon, are you?”

Jack knew that if he had the energy or ability, he would punch the perky little Cody straight in the mouth. But he had neither and so settled for glaring at him instead.

Several weeks after managing to sit up in bed for a few short moments, Shane, his therapist, had decided that Jack was strong enough to try to take his first steps since the shoot-out at the factory.

He had never felt so humiliated than when Shane helped him into a wheelchair and took him to a room that he now viewed as a place of torture. Even though it was for no more than a few hours a day, his therapist, the sadistic bastard, would push him further and further until he wanted to beg the man for mercy.

Trying to move one foot forward was almost impossible and no matter what signals his brain tried to send, his fucking legs would barely cooperate. If it wasn’t for Shane’s quick reflexes, he would have fallen flat on his face that first time he tried to pull himself out of the wheelchair.

He swore and lost his temper, but today he had managed to walk ten decent steps with little support from the beams either side of his body. He might be making progress towards walking again, but he still need far too much assistance for even the simplest tasks. He felt like a grown man trapped in a helpless infant’s body.

And it ate away at his pride, day after day.

It didn’t seem to matter how often he shouted at Shane, Kate or Cody, none of them would leave him be. Couldn’t they see that all he wanted was to be left alone to brood?

Jack glared at the chessboard sitting on the tray of his bed. It was his move, but the physical therapy session Shane had put him through today had exhausted him. All he wanted was to close his eyes and fall into a blissful unconsciousness where he wasn’t still haunted by how useless his body had become.

“Your move, Skip,” Cody nudged him, slurping noisily from a can of coke.

With a tired sigh, Jack lifted his right arm to move one of his pieces.

“No cheating,” Cody admonished him. “Use your left.”

_Great,_ Jack thought. Now even Cody was ganging up on him.

With another glare at the young man, Jack willed his weaker arm not to betray him. It had taken months, but he was finally re-learning some of the fine-motor movements that he had always taken for granted before his brain injury.

His movements were slow and methodical as Cody watched on with interest as Jack moved his queen in front of Cody’s king.

“Checkmate,” Jack said, knocking Cody’s chess piece over.

He might have taken a bullet to the brain, but his mind was still as sharp as it had ever been, while sober, at least.

“Jeez, Skip,” Cody said ruefully, “You gotta let me win one of these days.”

“Never,” he replied, the corner of his lip curling up in a smirk.

“Ah, come on,” Kate said as she strolled into the room. “Give the poor kid a break.”

Jack shut his eyes and took a calming breath. He was hoping to get rid of Cody after winning their chess match. He’d had enough of the perky little cheerleader today and the last thing he needed was another one popping their head around the door to his room.

“I’ve just been talking to Shane,” Kate said, leaning over to kiss Jack on the cheek. “I hear you’ve been doing laps around the therapy room.”

He knew she didn’t mean them to, but her words made Jack feel even more pathetic than he had before. It was more than a little patronising when the woman you loved congratulated you for being able to take a few stupid fucking footsteps.

He said nothing, staring at the wall over Cody’s shoulder.

“Now you’re up and walking, we can think about getting you home.”

Those words sent a shock of sheer terror through Jack’s heart. Yeah, he’d taken a couple of shaky steps, but he still couldn’t get out of bed without assistance or get dressed without some sort of physical support. He was nowhere near being able to go home yet.

“No,” Jack growled out through gritted teeth.

“You don’t want to go home, Skip?” Cody asked. “You’re not sick of this place yet?”

Jack’s home was on the second floor of his building and his apartment itself was split over two floors. There would be no way he could make it around the place without support and what would happen when he needed to use the bathroom? There was no way he would let anyone he knew help him with that. At least at the hospital it was just some random nurse who assisted him.

“Shane agrees that you’ll do better at home,” Kate said, trying to encourage her lover to see the benefits of finally leaving the hospital behind. “We’ll help you until you get settled, you don’t need to worry about anything.”

“No,” Jack repeated, feeling his anger get the better of him.

Kate ran a frustrated hand through her hair.

“What do you mean, no? Don’t you want to go home?”

How could he make her see that having her and Cody wiping his arse and helping him get dressed was only going to make this whole mess of a situation worse?

“I’m not leaving here until I can look after myself,” Jack growled, his voice dangerously low.

“But that could be months, Skip,” Cody said, frowning.

“I don’t care,” Jack replied.

“But Shane - “

“Can fuck off!” Shouted Jack, interrupting the woman he loved. “Why don’t you all just fuck off and leave me alone?”

Kate opened and closed her mouth, taken aback by the look of anger on Jack’s face.

“We just want to help you - “

“Really?” Jack sneered. “Then leave me the fuck alone then!”

His breath was coming in deep gasps as tears streamed down his face. All he wanted was for the world to leave him alone to wallow in his self-imposed misery.

He screwed his eyes shut, waiting for Cody and Kate to take the hint and leave him alone. Only then did he allow the sobs to wrack his ruined, weakened shell of a body.

* * *

Cody, sweet-natured boy that he was, handed Kate a cup of coffee as he sat next to her in the hospital corridor. 

She smiled her gratitude at him.

“Are you ok?” He asked.

She gave him a tired smile.

“I’ve had better days.”

“And Jack will too,” Cody replied.

For all of his youthful naivety, there was a wisdom in Cody that went beyond his tender years.

“I didn’t think he’d be so against the idea of going home.”

“I kinda wished I’d stayed in hospital a little longer myself,” Cody said, leaning back on the hard, plastic hospital chair. “Especially when I realised me mam would have to wipe me arse for me, but the thought of me girlfriend doing it for me?” He shook his head and shuddered. “I think I’d rather die.”

Ok, so Cody had a point, but Jack would have done anything for her had the tables been turned. He was a rude, loud-mouthed, arrogant, belligerent arsehole, but when Jack cared about someone, he gave them his all.

She suddenly felt weary and defeated.

“I just want to help him, Cody. I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing…I’m making it up as I go along.”

“We all are,” Cody replied, a wise head on young shoulders. ‘Especially the Skipper…try not to take it personally. He’s only pushing you away because he loves you…he doesn’t want you to see him as weak.”

“I don’t,” she countered.

“That’s what he sees every day when someone has to help him out of bed…he’s had everything taken from him, is it really that much for him to ask us to let him have a little pride?”

Once again, she realised that Cody was right. He might be a young kid who hero-worshiped Jack and the ground he walked on, but she was grateful to have him here, realising that perhaps Cody knew Jack better than any of them did.


	14. 20th November

**20th November:**

“Well, you look like crap,” Darragh remarked as Kate let him in to her apartment.

Of course she looked bloody tired, she’d had to peel Jack off the pavement of some dirty alleyway and patch him back together after his foolish endeavour to meet with Paloma.

It was a trap, both of them knew it, and yet Jack still went anyway. It was almost as if he went searching for trouble. Self-destructive didn’t even cover the half of it where Jack was concerned.

“Rough night?” Darragh asked, taking the cup of herbal tea she offered him.

Kate shrugged her shoulders and poured herself another cup of strong black coffee.

“Not as rough as some,” she answered tiredly.

Darragh cocked an eyebrow. “Jack?”

Kate snorted. “Who else?”

Darragh made himself comfortable on her sofa.

“It take it that his visit to the Yew Tree didn’t go too well then?”

Kate flopped down on the sofa next to her cousin.

“Mr. North and his friends made an appearance.”

Darragh winced.

“Ouch. What was the damage?”

“Cuts, bruises…his pride,” Kate answered, surprised to see Jack shuffling into the room, his shirt undone, and hair bedraggled. “How did you sleep?” She asked, watching him limp toward the coffee pot in the kitchen.

“Like a corpse,” he answered, giving her a pointed look.

Kate smiled, the pills she gave him yesterday would knock a horse out. Jack hadn’t moved a muscle all night, she knew because she’d spent most of it awake, keeping an eye on the injured man lying beside her.

“How do you feel?” Darragh asked, watching Jack sit down gingerly on the opposite couch.

“Like someone kicked the shit out me,” Jack answered glumly. 

“You can report it and make it official…if you like?” Kate suggested.

Jack huffed, wincing at the twinge in his ribs.

“Why? They’ll do fuck all about it anyway. Knowing my luck, a couple of them were the Guards.”

“You’re not going to let them get away with this, surely?” Darragh asked.

Jack shook his head. 

“Oh, I’ll get them in me own way, don’t you worry.”

Kate frowned. The last time Jack threatened to take revenge on someone, he’d ended up being arrested for murder.

“Maybe this is something you don’t want to get involved in,” Kate cautioned him. “Whatever’s going on between Mr. Smith, Paloma, and this Mr. North, you’re probably better off out of it.”

Jack waved a hand dismissively before wincing as his body began throbbing with the pace of his heartbeat.

“You think Mr. Smith will let me hand him his money back and walk away?” He said bitterly. “I’m involved in this now whether I like it or not. Besides, all I need to do is tell Mr. Smith where to find his long lost friend and then my job is done.”

“And you really think that’ll be the end of it?” Darragh said suspiciously.

“Only one way to find out,” Jack said, pulling himself painfully from the couch.

“Where are you going?” Kate asked. “Are you sure you should be up and about?” Mr. North and his men had certainly done a number on him the night before and they’d hardly been gentle when getting their message across either.

Jack ignored her concern as he finished the last of his coffee and made to leave.

“I’m going to talk to Mr. Smith and find out just what kind of fucking mess he’s dragged me into.”

* * *

Jack sat on the same bench in Eyre Square where first met Mr. Smith. He was quickly growing tired of waiting for the posh fuck to show up.

Finally, the man arrived wearing a tweed suit and long overcoat. Was he trying to shove his good breeding down this poor Irish bastard’s throat?

“Do you have something for me, Mr. Taylor?”

Jack bristled at the man’s dismissive tone.

“You not going to ask me how I am first?”

Mr. Smith kept his gaze straight ahead, almost as if he didn’t want to be caught sitting next to a man like Jack.

“It looks like you ran into some trouble,” Mr. Smith said, apparently unfazed by Jack’s beaten and bruised face.

“Yeah, something like that,” Jack grumbled, feeling his skull beginning to throb again.

“Have you found him?”

“Nathaniel?”

“Yes,” Mr. Smith replied as if he were talking to a simpleton. “The man I paid you to find.”

“Yeah, I found him,” Jack answered.

“So where is he?”

His client was getting impatient and after the kicking he’d taken, Jack felt that he deserved to know why Mr. Smith was looking for his old ‘friend’.

“Are you going to tell me what the hell you’ve gotten me into first?”

Finally, Mr. Smith turned to look at him.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because Nathaniel’s friends kicked the shit out of me. I think the least I deserve is to know what the fuck is going on between you all.”

“You know about Nathaniel’s proclivities, I take it?” Mr. Smith asked after a pause.

“That he’s Paloma now?” Jack asked. “Yeah, I know, and it would have been a shite-lot easier if you’d told me about that in the first place.”

Mr. Smith sniffed.

“I needed to know that I could trust you.”

Jack bristled at the remark.

“If you didn’t trust me, why the fuck did you hire me?”

“Because I heard you were good and not afraid to get your hands dirty if needs be.”

Jack dragged himself to his feet.

“Look, I’m not some fucking monkey that you can tell what to do,” Jack growled. “Whatever stupid fucking game is going on between the three of you is none of my business. Paloma spends her evenings at the Yew Tree bar with some fat shit called Mr. North, that’s all I know.”

“Mr. Taylor, wait,” Mr. Smith called out as Jack tried to walk away. “My apologies for being so vague with you. I was rather hoping that you would help me free Paloma from the mess she seems to have found herself in. I know she’s not happy with Mr. North.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at his client.

“Whereas you have her best interests at heart?”

His client looked affronted at the remark.

“More so than Mr. North does,” he replied stiffly. “Nathaniel… Paloma and I have a long and complicated history but he…she is still my friend and I know that Mr. North is keeping them close under duress. You have no idea what that man is capable of.”

Jack laughed at that.

“Funny, Paloma said the same thing about you. I don’t want any part of whatever sordid threesome you’re all in. You asked me to find your friend and I did. My work here is done.”

Jack felt the man’s hand gripping his forearm.

“It’s over when I say it’s over, Mr. Taylor,” Mr. Smith insisted.

“Take your fucking hand off of me before I break it,” he warned his client. He was in no mood for pissing about. All he wanted was a long, hot bath and twelve hours of blissful sleep and playing families with this posh fuck was grating on his last nerve.

Mr. Smith let go of him reluctantly.

“They’ll do more than break Paloma’s hand if she doesn’t do what they want. Can you live with that on your conscience, Mr. Taylor? All she wanted was for someone to love her for who she was.”

“And do you?” Jack asked, looking his client in the eye. “Do you love her?”

Mr. Smith took a deep breath.

“More than you know, but things didn’t end well between us…she won’t pick up the phone or reply to any of my messages. I want to help her, but I can’t, she doesn’t trust me anymore.”

“And why should I trust you? How do I know you’re not just selling me a crock-full of shit?”

“I will beg you if that’s what it takes,” Mr. Smith said. “Please don’t let Paloma be the one who pays for my mistakes. They say that you’re a good man, Mr. Taylor…that you fight for the innocent… Paloma is innocent and she’s in trouble…I….she needs your help. Please don’t turn away from her.”

“What are you expecting me to do?” Jack shot back. “Mr. North and his goons kicked the shit out of me the last time I approached her.”

Mr. Smith looked at him with a mixture of sadness and hope.

“I have faith that you’ll find a way. You’re her only hope, Mr. Taylor…please help her.”


	15. Present Day

**Present day:**

Kate had taken Cody’s wise words to heart and was making a concerted effort not to put too much pressure on Jack when it came to his recovery. He was getting stronger and more capable of looking after himself with each day that passed, and Kate hoped it would only be a matter of weeks or days before Jack decided it was time to return home.

After being stuck in the hospital for just over five months, surely Jack would decide, sooner or later, that he was better off recovering at home. Christmas and New Year had passed, and Jack’s birthday had rolled around quicker than any of them realised. Perhaps a little of the birthday spirit was in him as he accepted the cards and the fuss that they had all made of him today.

Much to everyone’s surprise, he had merely smiled at the spokey-dokeys Cody bought for his wheelchair. That goddamn chair was a symbol of everything Jack hated, and he was still too reliant on it as far as he was concerned. He was likely to react in one of two ways and Kate was relieved when he responded with a smile and a mumbled comment instead of righteous anger.

They were also able to sneak in some proper food and Jack consumed the plate of cake like a man starved as soon as Kate placed it in front of him. Lying on his bed in a grey t-shirt and jogging bottoms, he was beginning to look more like the man they all knew, rather than the weakened shell he’d been since the night of the shooting.

There had been laughter and jokes and Kate began to feel hopeful that Jack would soon leave the hospital for good. The past five months had been horrific for all of them, especially Jack, and she knew they would all be glad to see the back of the place.

One of the young nurses on the rehab ward seemed to have caught the attention of Cody as his eyes followed her along the corridor.

“Seeing as you’re spoken for, Skip. You wanna put in a good word for me with that nurse?”

Cody frowned when his friend did not respond.

“Our company that boring?” Kate asked the man lying on the bed, giving his shoulder a gentle shake. “Jack?”

It took a couple more vigorous shakes before his eyes fluttered open.

“What?” He slurred as his eyes drifted shut again.

“Cody, get some help,” Kate ordered, trying not to panic. “Now!” She shouted as Cody stood frozen, his mouth gaping open as he looked down at Jack.

They all took a step back when the nurse that Cody had taken a shine to entered the room, measuring her patient’s pulse before inserting a digital thermometer in his ear. She frowned when she saw the reading.

“I’ll page the neurologist,” the nurse said as she left the room.

Kate stood anxiously in the corner of the room as the neurologist arrived and carried out a series of tests on his patient before turning to the nurse and speaking in a medical language that Kate couldn’t understand. The doctor caught her worried frown and turned his attention to her.

“We think he may have picked up an infection.”

Kate looked at the doctor blankly. 

“What kind of infection?” she asked. He was in a hospital for heaven’s sake, he was meant to be safe here.

“An infection in the brain that causes it to become swollen. We’ll need to carry out a lumbar puncture to make sure.”

“What does that mean?”

She could feel her world fall to pieces around her all over again.

“We’ll take a sample of the fluid from the spinal cord and test it for infection. You’ll need to leave the room; I’ll have someone come and find you once we have a clearer picture of what’s happening.”

Kate felt the tears welling in her eyes, Jack had come so far and now it might all be for nothing. Would he get over this latest hurdle or would he be back to square one with his recovery?

When would life cut them a fucking break?

* * *

Cody and Darragh sat on either side of Kate, waiting for hours for news on Jack’s condition. Things had been going so well and now suddenly it looked like it was all going to rat shit again. Googling the symptoms and treatment for the infection had hardly filled Kate with hope either.

After what seemed like an age, the specialist walked up to them, his face grim.

“There were complications with the lumbar puncture,” the doctor began, smoothing down his tie as he sat on a plastic chair opposite Kate. “Mr. Taylor’s condition deteriorated significantly during the procedure and we’ve had to place him on a ventilator and an induced coma for his own safety.

Kate couldn’t help the sob that escaped from her lips as she raised a hand to cover her mouth.

“What’s the prognosis?” Darragh asked, his voice calm.

“Test results confirm the infection and we’ve started him on a strong course of intravenous antibiotics in the hopes that we can stop it in its tracks.”

“Can it be fatal?” Darragh asked.

The neurologist nodded his head.

“In some cases, yes. We’ve caught it quite early however, so I am hopeful that our current course of treatment will be successful.”

Cody finally spoke up.

“What are the risks of long-term complications?”

The specialist paused before answering, trying to choose his words carefully.

“It’s likely that some of the progress Mr. Taylor’s made from his initial brain injury may have been undone, but we won’t know until we’ve got the infection under control and tried to bring him out of the coma. I’m sorry that I don’t have a more accurate answer for you at the moment.”

* * *

Cody, Darragh and Kate took it in turns over the next four days to maintain a vigil at Jack’s bedside, looking hopefully at each nurse and doctor that entered the room. On the fifth day, the neurologist directed the nurses to cut back on the sedatives and it was now an anxious wait to see what damage the infection had caused.

Reading a book by Jack’s bedside, Cody saw his old partner’s right hand twitch. He barely had time to react before Jack’s eyes flew open and he began pulling at the tube in his throat, clearly not aware of his surroundings or what was happening to him.

Cody yelled out for help, feeling his wrist being grabbed painfully as Jack tried to pull the tube from his throat. Jack’s face was turning purple as he continued to struggle and choke, unable to breathe with the obstruction in his airway as medical personnel flooded the room and tried to stop their patient from hurting himself further. Cody attempted to pull away, but the more he moved, the tighter the other man held his arm.

The doctor ordered one of his colleagues to sedate their patient and Cody looked on in horror as the medication finally hit Jack’s bloodstream and the hand crushing his wrist gradually loosened and fell back onto the bed.

“Are you ok?” One of the nurses asked Cody as he rubbed at his wrist.

He nodded his head, eyes fixed on Jack as a nurse readjusted her patient’s head on the pillow and checked him over for any damaged he’d caused himself in his confusion.

“It’s him I’m worried about, “ Cody said, nodding at his friend.

The nurse smiled, trying to be reassuring.

“That happens sometimes,” she said, pulling Cody’s sleeve up to get a better look at his wrist. “It’s a pretty unpleasant way to regain consciousness. We’ll keep him under for a while longer and hope that the next time he wakes, he’s a little less confused and agitated.”

Cody nodded, wincing as the nurse moved his wrist from side to side before ushering him from the room.

“We’ll get an X-ray on your arm just to make sure nothing’s broken,” she told him as Cody gave his old friend one final look. “You’d be surprised how much strength fear gives you, even when you’ve been in a coma.

“Will he be ok?” Cody asked.

The young nurse, the one he’d taken a shine to today looked at him and tried to reassure him. “We’ll know more the next time he wakes up, but let’s worry about you for now, ok?


	16. 20th November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am posting this a few days early as I have been lucky enough to get front row tickets to a play Iain and his beautiful wife Charlotte are starring in this weekend!

Jack sat on the couch in Kate’s apartment, still mulling over his ‘chat’ with Mr. Smith. 

There was something seedy going on between Paloma and the two men who seemed determined to fight over her…

He hated how complicated his own romantic relationship was and it bugged Jack that he was now getting pulled into someone else’s. Trying to figure out love was like digging to Australia with a spoon - it was hard, shitty, and unforgiving work.

“How’d it go with Mr. Smith?” Kate asked, handing Jack a cup of coffee and sitting beside him on the couch. “Did you get any answers?”

Jack shook his head, “He just gave me some bollocks about how I was Paloma’s only hope.”

Kate frowned. “So what are you going to do?”

“Well, I sure as shite ain’t gonna go looking for Mr. North again,” he replied, wincing as the hot coffee stung his split lip.

“That doesn’t leave you many options.”

Jack looked at his girlfriend hopefully.

“That’s where you come in?”

Kate’s mind was immediately on alert. When Jack asked for help, it rarely ended well.

“How?” She said warily.

“I was hoping that you would put both of their names through the system…run a background check on them?”

“On the basis of what?” Kate asked, knowing full well that she would be expected to justify the checks to her superiors.

“On the basis that one of them tried to kick your boyfriend’s head in?”

_Fuck it,_ Jack thought, _when all else fails, play the sympathy card._

Kate looked at him.

“And what do I get out of this?”

Jack gave her his best sincere expression.

“My undying gratitude?”

He kept looking at her like a lost little puppy, flashing his blue eyes at her until Kate felt her resistance beginning to crumble.

“Boyfriend, huh?” she said after a while.

Jack winced, realising that the word had slipped from his mouth. He was Jack Taylor, a man who didn’t do love and relationships.

“Well, I’m not seeing anyone else, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jack said quietly.

Kate rolled her eyes.

“And they say romance is dead.”

Maybe it was the aching pain from his bruised and battered body, but Jack could feel his hackles rise. Why did Kate always have to make things so hard? Couldn’t she see that he was trying his best, for fuck’s sake.

He let out a pained breath, wincing as it tore at his sore ribs.

“Fine, forget I fucking said anything.”

Kate appeared unfazed by his apparent change of mood.

“Jeez, get a sense of humour already,” she said drolly before walking toward her kitchen to grab a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “Here, have a drink,” she said, handing him a tumbler of the amber liquid.”

He gave her a sour look, refusing to take it.

“That’s your answer is it?”

“Well, it’s usually yours,” she shot back quickly. She shook the proffered glass at him once more.

Jack took a deep breath. The lure of alcohol was more than a little tempting, but he had promised himself that he would stay sober. He shook his head, pushing the glass away, feeling Kate place a hand on his forehead in response.

“You feeling ok?” She asked with a wry smile. “You’re not coming down with something, are you?”

“I’m on the wagon,” he replied, running a hand through his hair.

Kate barked out a laugh. “Since when?”

Jack stood up quickly, pacing around the room.

“Since I promised myself that I’d do better by you.”

His words were sincere but fell on deaf ears as Kate rolled her eyes at him. It tore at his already sore body and bruised heart.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” He shouted, finally feeling his anger getting the better of him. “You said you wanted me to be more like him,” he said, still bitter at the way Kate had left him for her old school friend. “You said you wanted someone who was reliable…so here I am, trying to be more reliable.”

Kate felt her own temper ignite. It would be days before she realised how badly she’d dealt with their argument.

“You couldn’t be reliable even if you tried, Jack. You just fuck things up wherever you go.”

Her words stung, but Jack was determined not to let it show. He would fight fire with fire if that’s what she wanted.

“I can’t fucking win with you, can I?” He said, running an exasperated hand over his beard. “I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I fucking don’t!”

Kate narrowed her eyes at him.

“So this is my fault, is it?” She shot back. “Teflon Jack Taylor,” she mocked him. “No shit sticks to him because it’s never his fault!”

He stared at the woman he loved for several moments, looking for all the world as if she had slapped him in the face. He shook his head and walked away.

“Where are you going?” She called out after him.

“Home,” he replied, his voice devoid of emotion.

“You’re not going to stay?”

He looked at her, his eyes full of sorrow.

“There’s no point,” he said sadly. “Do me a favour, will you?” He asked as he reached for the door handle, “Let me know when you’ve decided.”

“Decided what?” She said, confused by his response.

“When you’ve decided what the fuck it is that you actually want from me.”

* * *

Having walked home from Kate’s place, Jack resisted every pub along the way. Oh, how tempting it was to walk into any one of them and drink away his sorrows. It would be all too easy to fall into the usual trap and if he did so tonight it would only prove to Kate how right she was about him.

Chaos was his default setting, after all.

He sagged onto the sofa, tossing his mobile phone on the coffee table. The screen lit up as Kate’s number popped up on the display. No doubt she wanted to give him another earful about what a shitty boyfriend he was.

Kate raking her claws across his heart was more than he could tolerate tonight and he was too tired to even think about climbing up the stairs to his bedroom. Whether she meant to or not, Kate had sucked the life out of him with her cruel words this evening.

Making himself comfortable on the sofa, he closed his eyes and willed his overworked mind to shut down and allow him at least a semi-peaceful sleep. Booze always helped to quiet the voices and although he’d tipped away most of his stash, there was still one bottle left, hidden away in the cupboard under the sink just in case…

He must have been more tired than he realised as Jack felt his eyes grow heavy and slumber drag him slowly into its comforting embrace. As he drifted off, he failed to notice the blinking red light of the camera hidden in the corner of the room, unaware that someone was watching him.


	17. Present Day

**Present day:**

“So, are you going to miss this place?” The young female nurse asked as she bent down to tie Jack’s shoelaces. It had taken months, but the time had finally come for him to leave the hospital, almost six months after that fateful night of the shootout.

After waking from a coma for the second time, everyone had feared that his progress up until that point would all be for nothing, but strangely it seemed to kickstart something within his body and Jack found himself progressing further with his recovery faster than anyone had expected.

In the past few weeks he had gone from being wholly reliant on nurses to help him shower and dress to the point that he could do most of it by himself.

Except the bastard shoelaces, of course.

“I’m sure you’re not going to miss me,” Jack replied, giving her a wry grin.

The young nurse looked at him and chuckled.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You kind of grow on a person after a while,” she replied, smoothing down a lock of his unruly hair. “Who’s coming to pick you up?”

Jack grimaced, hoping that Kate would heed his warning and not invite a whole fucking troupe of people to witness this historic day.

“The girlfriend,” he replied.

The nurse laughed.

“She’s just your girlfriend, is she?”

Truth be told, Jack wasn’t sure what the fuck he and Kate were anymore. At the time of the shooting they had barely been speaking to one another, yet Kate had been with him every step of the way throughout his recovery.

Maybe she was more than just a girlfriend…

Ah shit, he’d never been good at the relationship stuff even before the bullet to his head. He’d probably make an utter fucking mess of it given half the chance.

“Taxi for Jack Taylor?” Kate said with a smile, walking into the room and looking tenderly at the man she loved.

Jack frowned when he saw Cody following shortly behind her.

Kate looked over her shoulder before shrugging.

“He wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Hiya, Skip,” Cody grinned before his eyes fell on the nurse he’d taken a shine to. “Sarah,” he said, nodding shyly to her.

“How’s the wrist?” The nurse asked, glancing at the cast on Cody’s arm.

“It’s coming off next week,” he replied, his cheeks blushing a fierce red as the beautiful young woman looked at him.

After waking from a coma for the second time, Jack was mortified when told that he’d broken his young friend’s wrist in the midst of a panicked attempt to pull the breathing tube from his throat. Every time he saw the plaster cast on Cody’s arm, he felt another pang of guilt for hurting him.

“That’s a shame,” the nurse replied. “I guess it means now that Jack’s leaving and your cast is coming off that we won’t being seeing you around the hospital anymore.”

“I could always give you my number?” Cody said hopefully.

Jack rolled his eyes dramatically. “Ah jeez, get me out of here before I puke, will you, Kate?” He said, frowning when she shook her head.

“We’ve got to wait for your transport.”

“I can walk out of here by myself,” Jack grumbled, crossing his arms.

Shane, the man who had tortured Jack relentlessly for months on end, pushed in a wheelchair.

“Your carriage awaits, sir,” the therapist said with a flourish.

Jack eyed the chair with disdain.

“You can fuck right off if you think I’m getting in that thing.”

“It’s hospital policy,” Shane replied. “They won’t let you leave otherwise.”

Jack reluctantly pulled himself off the bed, mumbling under his breath as he made himself comfortable in the chair.

Jack held his hand up.

“Hold on a sec,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the nurse. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, “I’ve probably been an absolute nightmare, but I’m grateful for everything you’ve all done for me… I’m no good at this kind of stuff, but I know I owe you all my life…I won’t forget that.”

The nurse gave him a watery smile, patting him on the arm.

“I know you don’t think so, but you’re one of the lucky ones. Not everybody gets to leave here with such a positive outcome.”

It was something that Jack was keenly aware of. When that bullet had ricocheted and struck him in the head he had been dead for a number of minutes before the paramedics could restart his heart and force life back into him, and along with the damage the projectile had done, he knew without a doubt that he was fortunate to still be walking and talking, albeit months of recovery later.

“Well, I’ll try not to take any more blows to the head,” Jack replied, feeling his own emotions get the better of him.

“That would be wise, Mr. Taylor,” Dr. Franz said as he stood in the hallway, frowning. “I’ll be very disappointed if you undo all my hard work.”

“I’ll do me best,” Jack replied, holding out his hand to shake the doctor’s before Shane wheeled him down the corridor and away to freedom.

* * *

Jack was relieved to find no welcome home party upon returning to his apartment. It was embarrassing enough having Kate and Cody glancing at him every two seconds on the car journey from the hospital.

“I’m not fucking made of glass,” Jack growled when Cody looked at him for the hundredth time.

It was a typical Jack Taylor response. He despised being coddled at the best of times. All he wanted was for Kate and Cody to drop him at home and leave him to his own devices.

Except they had other ideas.

After telling both of them that they could leave, Jack caught the look between his girlfriend and his former partner.

“What?” He scowled as he looked at them.

“Cody’s going to be staying with you for a while,” Kate said, bracing herself for the almighty tirade she knew Jack would send their way. “Just until you get settled and into a routine.”

Jack tried his best to swallow his anger, they were only trying to help, after all.

“You make me sound like a fucking puppy that needs to be housetrained,” Jack grumbled.

“Well, a dog would learn to do as it’s bloody told,” Kate shot back angrily, instantly regretting her outburst.

“I know my way around me own bloody home,” Jack replied quietly.

“Really? Do you?” Cody piped up. “Where’s the bathroom then? Where’s the mains and gas cut-off switches? When do you need to take these?” The young man asked, holding up a carrier bag full of the medication Jack would need to take for the rest of his life in order to minimise the long-term effects of his injury.

Jack slumped onto the couch with a defeated sigh. He couldn’t answer any of those bloody questions and Cody knew it. 

It didn’t mean he liked the idea of being babysat by someone who was young enough to be his son.

“Just stay out the fucking way, will you?” Jack replied with a growl.

Cody grinned, seemingly unfazed by Jack’s permanently sour mood.

“Scout’s honour, Skip. I’ve already set my stuff up in your spare bedroom. I’ll be quiet as a mouse, promise.”

Jack watched Cody leave for his room as Kate sat beside him on the couch.

“It won’t be for long,” she said, trying to keep his spirits up. “Just until you get settled and find your way around.”

“I should fucking know my way around me own home by now,” Jack said quietly, closing his eyes and feeling the shame wash over him. “I barely recognise it,” he whispered.

Kate pulled him close and kissed the top of his head, mindful of the scar that would forever remain above his right ear.

“It’ll get better,” she told him.

“Will it?” He asked bitterly. “I can’t be left alone in my own fucking home, how pathetic is that?”

“You’ll adapt,” she reassured him. “You’re Jack Taylor, you always find a way.”

He felt so defeated. Even the short trip from the hospital to his home had left him feeling exhausted and his fucked-up brain refused to cooperate with even the simplest of commands. He could barely remember his arse from his elbow and would still be totally reliant on the kindness of those around him to relearn the kind of tasks he had always taken for granted. 

All he had ever done was push the people he loved away and right then he needed to know. He needed to know why Kate was still by his side, refusing to leave him.

“Why?” He asked her quietly.

“Why what?” She replied, confused by the question.

“Is it guilt…pity?” He asked quietly. “Why haven’t you left me?”

He could feel his bottom lip tremble. Damn his fucking uncontrollable emotions! 

If Kate had any sense, she would leave his pitiful arse behind and never look back.

“You can, you know,” he whispered, not daring to glance at Kate and see the look on her face. “I wouldn’t blame you…I would never hate you for it.”

Instead of pulling away, he felt Kate holding him even tighter.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You should,” he insisted. “You would if you had any sense.”

“If I had any sense we would never have got together in the first place,” Kate snorted. “You’re an arrogant, ignorant, stubborn, rude pain in the arse, but you’re _my_ pain in the arse.”

Jack let out a watery laugh. 

“It’s a sin to mock the disabled, you know that, right?”

“Says the man who treats ‘thou shalt not’ like a bucket list,” she shot back quickly.

“Looks like we’re both going to hell then,” he chuckled, wiping at his eyes with the palms of his hands.

He felt Kate rest her cheek on the top of his head and squeeze him tighter.

“Save me a seat then, and I’ll meet you there.”


	18. 22nd November

**22nd November**

Maybe it was childish, but Jack was determined that he wouldn’t crack first when it came to his latest argument with Kate.

Perhaps they’d both been tired and he still sore and bruised from his ‘meeting’ with Mr. North and his goons, but Kate had raised his hackles with her nonchalance when it came to him staying sober.

How many times had she raged at him for letting booze get the better of him? 

And yet she encouraged the behaviour, enabling him until the lure of alcohol was too much for him to resist. Their circle of co-dependency was unhealthy at best and downright destructive at its worst.

No, it was better that he leave her be - he’d never got anywhere by poking the hornet’s nest and his heart still stung from Kate’s previous attack.

It had been two days since their argument and Jack had no idea if Kate had run the names of Mr. Smith and Mr. North through the system. Maybe she was waiting for him to cave in and contact her first?

She had always told him he was a stubborn bastard and he was determined to wait this one out, no matter how long it took.

The bottle of booze under the kitchen sink was still calling to him though, whispering its lies in his ear about how just one drink would make everything seem so much better…

He sipped on his bitter black coffee and tried to ignore it as he grabbed a book from the shelf and began reading, hoping that it would distract him from thoughts of both Kate and the booze that was still hidden in the dark recesses of the kitchen cupboard.

He was several chapters in when a knock at the door took him by surprise. Using an old card receipt to mark the page, Jack closed the book and dropped it on to the coffee table wondering who the hell would be knocking on his door at this time of night.

He couldn’t hide his look of surprise which he quickly masked with a frown as his eyes fell on the face of his visitor.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said quietly as Kate stood awkwardly in the hallway.

Kate bit back on an acerbic retort, she had come here to make peace with Jack after all.

“Are you not going to let me in?”

_Tell her to fuck off,_ the devil on Jack’s shoulder whispered in his ear, and he was sorely tempted to agree, only for the more rational half of his brain to take over and command his body to stand aside to let her in.

His eyes followed Kate’s as she took a look around his home, no doubt expecting to see empty bottles of booze strewn everywhere.

“Not what you were expecting?” He said, rather uncharitably as he stood with his arms folded. She’d hurt him and he was determined not to let her off the hook too easily.

Kate pulled several sheets of paper from her bag and handed them to Jack, disappointed when he barely looked at her as he held his hand out for them. She watched him flick through the pages and could see the cogs beginning to turn in his mind as he took in the information. For all the destruction and havoc he brought, Jack had a sharp mind and a detective’s nous that few others could rival.

“So, Mr. North is in a dodgy line of work it would seem,” Jack said as he absent-mindedly rubbed at his stubbled chin.

“There’s been a few spats between him and some others,” Kate replied. “Nothing major, no dead bodies…as far as we can tell.”

“It says here about a smuggling ring,” Jack said, still pouring over the papers. “Do you know what kind of stuff?”

“Mainly stolen goods, some drugs here and there,” she answered, sitting on the sofa and picking up the book Jack had been reading, looking at it with interest. “He’s always had someone else take the rap for him…he’s good at hiding his involvement in any of it.”

Finally, Jack glanced at her for the briefest of moments.

“What about people?”

“Come again?” She replied

“Has Mr. North been involved in human trafficking?”

The question surprised Kate. She hadn’t even considered the notion that the businessman was into something much shadier than the transportation of stolen goods and drugs.

“What makes you say that?” 

Jack shrugged his shoulders and placed the papers down.

“Something in my gut tells me that there’s more to this than meets the eye. The look Paloma gave me the night…” he trailed off, not wanting to relive that particular experience again any time soon. “I get the feeling that they think they own her…and I don’t think she’s the only one.”

“You think North’s selling people into prostitution?”

It was a big leap as far as Kate was concerned, but it would make sense as to why Paloma had been caught down an alley with a punter’s cock in her mouth. Was Mr. North pimping her out for profit? Was that the reason that she felt she couldn’t leave?

“It wouldn’t be the first time and Galway’s rife with shit like that,” Jack mused, sitting down on the couch next to Kate. Now that his mind was focused on something other than feeling sorry for himself, he momentarily forgot that he was still angry at Kate.

“Maybe you should let the Guards deal with this,” Kate suggested, waiting for Jack to blow up and tell her how ridiculous that sounded.

“You think they’ll give a shit about some transvestites?” Jack huffed humourlessly. “I was a Guard once remember? I know how they think.”

“So what are you planning to do?” She asked him warily, knowing that when Jack had the bit between his teeth it rarely ended well for anyone.

Jack considered the question for several moments.

“I’m not sure…yet.”

It wasn’t a response that filled Kate with reassurance.

“Just don’t do anything stupid, ok?” She said frowning at him. 

“You worried I’ll get myself into trouble?” He smirked.

“You _always_ get yourself into trouble,” she replied. “I can’t leave you alone for more than five minutes, can I?”

She leaned in, closing the gap between them, hurt flashing across her face when he pulled back.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

Jack ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“I meant what I said, Kate. I’m tired of being messed around - you either want me or you don’t.”

Despite his bravado, in that moment, Kate realised that beneath it all was a man with a tender and gentle heart and one that had been broken far too many times already.

She reached out a hand to caress his face, relieved when he didn’t pull away.

“I want you,” she said softly.

He screwed his eyes shut.

“But what happens when you don’t?” He challenged her. “What happens when you decide that I’m no longer good enough for you…that you want anyone else but me?”

She’d had her fun with Anthony, but the stability he provided became tiresome far quicker than she expected it to. She missed the thrill and excitement that came with being with Jack, his unpredictability had always lit a fire within her that she found impossible to resist.

Ignoring his doubts, she leaned in to kiss him sensually and could feel his defences crumbling.

“You want me too, I know you do,” she whispered as her lips hovered over his.

Soon his hands were all over her before finding their way underneath the top she was wearing. Her own hands were struggling with the buttons on his shirt and he laughed against her lips as she huffed at finding him wearing a t-shirt underneath. Her top was soon discarded as she settled herself in Jack’s lap, naked from the waist up apart from her bra as she pulled his t-shirt over his head.

Just as things were getting interesting, Jack stopped, breathing heavily, his eyes alight with desire.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, confused as to why he had stopped his amorous assault on her body.

He lifted her from his lap before carrying her in his arms once more. 

She wrapped her legs around his waist as Jack walked them up the stairs to his bedroom, determined that he would take his sweet time as his hands and mouth travelled over every part of her body that he could reach, promising himself that he would have her screaming his name in pleasure before the night was through.


	19. Present Day

**Present day:**

Despite his insistence that he would be fine, Jack relented and allowed Kate to stay over on his first night back at home and truth be told, he was glad to have her there. After months of sleeping in a small hospital bed, it felt good to be able to stretch out and hold Kate in his arms once more.

He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow, but Jack felt himself pulled out of his slumber by Kate whimpering and wriggling beside him. He put a hand on her shoulder in an effort to wake her just as her eyes flew open and she launched herself into his arms.

“Hey, hey,” he crooned, running his hands through her hair. “It’s ok, Kate. You’re ok.”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes.

“Jack?”

He smiled gently at her.

“I’m right here, you’re ok.”

His heart broke when he heard her sob.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, watching her sit up against the headboard, wiping at her eyes.

She swallowed deeply, trying to regain her composure.

“I was back there,” she said, her voice still shaking.

Jack looked at her, clearly confused, as he propped himself up on the pillows.

“Back where?”

“The parking lot…”

He continued to look at her blankly.

“How much do you remember?” Kate asked.

Jack frowned. Even though Kate had told him what happened multiple times, all he could recall were random images, sounds, and smells.

“Not a lot,” he answered honestly. “I remember the smell of rain…I don’t remember what we were doing there.”

There was no point going over it again, she had told him enough times about the case of a missing person he’d taken on and how it had unfolded into something much larger and more dangerous than either of them could have anticipated.

“The shooting stopped,” Kate began, her bottom lip trembling. “I looked down and…you…you were just lying there. You weren’t breathing…you were dead.”

He’d been told numerous times how his heart had stopped…how the paramedics forced life back into him…how the surgeon spent countless hours repairing the damage the bullet had done to his brain…how Kate was told his chances of surviving were grim…

His first real memory was days after he’d woken from the coma he’d been placed in and those memories were foggy at best.

He pulled Kate closer. “I’m ok, I’m still here…still alive.”

His words didn’t seem to calm her.

“But you weren’t, Jack. I almost lost you,” she sobbed as tears leaked from her eyes. “I don’t know what I would have done - “

“You know me…tough as old boots,” he said with a chuckle, trying to reassure her. “I’ve got a head as hard as rock.” He guided her back down under the covers, motioning for Kate to make herself comfortable under his arm before they both drifted back to sleep.

* * *

When Jack woke he realised Kate was no longer beside him, and one look at the alarm clock on the nightstand made it obvious as to why. It was mid-morning and Kate had probably left hours ago to head home before starting her shift at work.

Pulling on a t-shirt, he made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. Cody was nowhere to be seen, but he could hear the water running in the shower down the hallway.

Picking up a clean cup from the sink and filling the kettle, he decided to make himself a coffee. The hospital had been absolute shits and refused to give him any for the majority of his stay and only relented in the final few weeks. Much to his surprise, Jack realised he missed coffee far more than he did the booze.

He stared at the empty cup and listened to the kettle boil, wracking his brain for the memory of what he needed to do next. Try as he might, his brain refused to cooperate as he stood staring at the kettle, hoping that it might suddenly give him the answer.

He felt his anger and frustration boiling as quickly as the water in the kettle. What kind of useless shit couldn’t even make himself a cup of coffee?

He’d made himself thousands of cups of the stuff in the past and now here he was looking like an idiot who didn’t know his way around his own home.

_Fine,_ he thought, _I’ll make breakfast instead_ , as it dawned on him moments later that he had no idea where the hell he kept the cutlery or crockery.

He could feel the voices in his head growing louder, and the harder he tried to recall even the simplest of tasks, the more infuriated he found himself getting.

He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his body shake with anger.

Why couldn’t he do this? What was wrong with him?

The anger spilled over before he could stop it as he threw the empty cup against the nearest wall. He felt his breath coming in short gasps as he clenched his fists repeatedly.

“Skip?”

Jack turned quickly to find Cody standing a few feet away, towel-drying his hair after his shower. 

Cody dropped the towel on the nearest surface, looking at his friend with some concern.

“You ok, Skip?” 

Jack could feel his emotions getting the better of him as he stalked away, his shoulder brushing past Cody’s as his bottom lip trembled. He took the stairs as fast as he could and slammed his bedroom door shut just as the tears began flowing freely from his eyes.

* * *

Kate let herself into Jack’s place with the key he’d given her before the shooting. She knew that she probably should have knocked, but it had been a long and tiring day down at the station. She wasn’t great company right now, but neither did she want to spend the evening alone.

“Anyone home?” She asked, making her way to the lounge, her eyes widening as she took in the many post-it notes adorning almost every surface of the kitchen.

Jack gave her a relieved look. “I swear to God, if the kid makes me write one more fucking post-it, I’m going to shove that pen up his arse - sideways.”

“What’s this?” Kate asked.

All over the kitchen were sticky notes with words like ‘cups’, ‘cutlery’, ‘coffee’. When she glanced down at one of the kitchen counters, she spied a notebook that had several pages already filled with what looked like instructions.

The idea had come upon Cody after seeing Jack storm away from the kitchen this morning. The broken cup on the floor telling him all that he needed to know - Jack was struggling with remembering even the most basic of tasks. Cody was no expert on brain injuries, but he figured his plan was worth giving a go anyway.

After dropping the still-brooding Jack off at the hospital for another rehabilitation session, Cody went to the nearest stationary store and bought two notebooks and several packs of post-it notes with the intention of getting Jack to re-learn some of the basic skills he had taken for granted before the injury.

Of course, Jack cursed and shouted at Cody as soon as they got home, but the older man finally relented and spent the last few hours scribbling words on pieces of paper and then sticking them on almost every surface in the kitchen.

“Is it some sort of art installation?” Kate teased. 

Cody looked at her proudly. “Skip and I have been making a note of where everything is, just ’til he gets used to it.” He then picked up one of the notebooks. “We’ve been writing stuff down like how to make a coffee. Simple stuff like that.”

Kate caught the way Jack winced at the word ‘simple’. His pride had taken such a beating since the shooting and she knew it would eat away at him that he couldn’t remember even the most straightforward of tasks, but maybe Cody was onto something and it would help Jack feel less reliant on those around him.

“So, you going to make me a coffee then, Jack?” Kate asked, wanting to see Cody’s grand scheme in action.

She was rewarded with a scowl as the man she loved rolled his eyes and sat down heavily on the couch.

“Ask the post-it note prick,” he grumbled. “The little fecker’s had me working like a bastard all day.”

She saw the rueful look on Jack’s face and knew it would be the closest he’d ever come to admitting that perhaps Cody was right.

“And make one for me while you’re at it,” Jack continued as Kate joined him on the couch and kissed him gently on the lips. “If you’re staying here, you need to start earning your keep.”

Cody couldn’t wipe the grin from his face - it was Jack’s arse-about-face way of showing that he appreciated having the kid around to help get back on his feet.

“On it, Skip,” he said as he began whistling and moving his way around the kitchen as if he’d lived there for years.


	20. 23rd November

**23rd November:**

Jack rubbed at his eyes, blinking several times as his pupils reacted to the strong morning night. He smiled as he saw Kate lying peacefully beside him.

True to his plan, he had her screaming with pleasure before the night was through and after days of pent-up frustration, it felt good to be lost in the feel of Kate as they tumbled through the sheets together.

He gently tucked a few errant strands of hair away from her forehead, smiling when she stirred and let out a breath before readjusting her head on the pillow and letting out a contented sigh.

He quietly climbed out of bed and got dressed before leaving a note on the kitchen counter for her to read when she woke.

_Kate,_

_I’m going to tail Mr. Smith for a while and see if he leads me anywhere interesting. I’ll call you tonight._

_Jack._

* * *

Using the business address the Guards had on record for Mr. Smith, Jack waited patiently in the nondescript car he’d bought for a couple of hundred euros. One of the benefits of being sober was the fact that he could drive anywhere he pleased, rather than relying on public transport or the charity of others.

He was sure that Mr. Smith’s business was nothing more than a front. Perhaps he should have done some reconnaissance work before taking the man’s money, but it was too late for that. He was in this mess whether he liked it or not.

Staying out of sight, Jack huffed humourlessly, watching the pretentious Mr. Smith exit his expensive car and make his way into the factory via a side entrance. Jack rolled his eyes, looking the posh prick up and down. The man was wearing a beige suit with an awful-looking trench coat on top of it, topped off by a garish pink silk scarf.

Jack was preparing to settle in for a long day of watching and waiting for the mysterious Mr. Smith to leave the building and was surprised when no more than an hour later, the man emerged and climbed into the driver’s side of his ostentatious Bentley.

He gave the Bentley a five hundred yard head-start before pulling out of the side road and following his quarry surreptitiously. Mr. Smith pulled up at several locations, stopping for no more than a few minutes at each, but always carrying a leather satchel with him.

After several hours of following his target’s car, Jack pulled into a yard full of lockups. Killing the engine and staying out of sight, he watched as Mr. Smith once more exited his car. Jack’s eyes followed him as he saw the man unlock one of the garages and step inside.

He had no idea what was in there and although part of Jack wanted to rush headlong into it after Mr. Smith, he knew it would be foolish to do so. Maybe he would have done it had he still been on the booze but being sober made him more cautious than he might normally have been.

His target had been in there an hour, possibly more, before leaving and getting back into his car. Jack considered tailing the man again, but his mind was too focused on what the hell was in that garage. He could feel it in his gut that whatever was in there was probably not good.

If he had his tools, he would have picked the lock and taken a look inside, but it would be safer to do so under the cover of darkness. Turning the key in the ignition, Jack pulled out of the yard, a plan already forming in his mind as to how he’d uncover just what the two shady businessmen were up to.

* * *

Returning with tools and a flashlight, Jack checked the coast was clear before getting to work on the padlock. He smiled at how easy it was to pick - Mr. Smith was hardly a criminal mastermind if he used such a shitty lock.

He lifted the metal garage door as quietly as he could, once more looking over his shoulder and checking that no one was watching him. Turning the flashlight on, he pulled the garage door back down and began looking around.

There were several dusty boxes filling the cramped space, but Jack ignored them and peered over the top to where a desk and filing cabinet were hidden. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Mr. Smith was hiding something behind those boxes.

Shifting the cardboard containers to one side, Jack held his flashlight over the desk. His eyes were drawn to several black and white photographs of Paloma going about her daily business. It was clear that Mr. Smith had employed someone to follow his old school friend which then begged the question as to why he’d called on Jack to track down his ‘missing’ friend in the first place. What was the point when the man clearly knew of Paloma’s whereabouts already?

Placing the photographs back where he found them, Jack turned his attention to the filing cabinet. He didn’t need to worry about picking its lock as Mr. Smith had left the key in it anyway and it was becoming increasingly clear that the man was no criminal. His attempts at concealing his whereabouts and the contents of his garage lockup were woeful and enough to embarrass even the lamest criminal.

Opening the top drawer of the cabinet, he saw a number of passports. Picking them up, he placed them on the desk and opened each one in turn. Although each name was different, the photo in each of them was the same - Paloma.

Peering into the filing cabinet once more, he also found a number of different documents including flight plans and plane tickets. It was clear that Mr. Smith was planning to rescue Paloma from her current predicament at the hands of Mr. North, but were his intentions entirely pure when it came to his old friend?

In his one conversation with Paloma, she made it clear that there was also something shady about Mr. Smith and that when they parted, it had been with some bad blood between them. If Mr. Smith did manage to prise Paloma away from Mr. North, would her life be any better with the former?

Paloma was not a piece of property that someone could lay claim to. She was a person in her own right who could live her life how she chose. No one owned her and yet the two men were acting as if they did.

It still didn’t answer the question of why Mr. Smith had got him involved in the whole sorry mess in the first place. Was the man expecting him to put in a good word for him with Paloma?

The cynical part of his brain told him that Mr. Smith was too prim and proper to risk his own safety to rescue Paloma from her ‘fate’ and that an alcoholic ex-cop was expendable should the whole thing blow up in their faces. If things went tits-up and Jack died, the Guards would write up his death as an accident and consider themselves fortunate that they had gotten rid of him once and for all.

Shaking his head at his own cynicism, Jack put the papers back where he found them and continued shuffling through the filing cabinet when his hand came across something cold and metallic. Placing the torch in his mouth, he used both hands to uncover a large pistol.

Placing the weapon on the desk, he checked the gun over. It was fully loaded.

Getting your hands on a gun in Galway was relatively easy, if you knew the right people - who were usually the ones you didn’t cross. Mr. Smith was getting himself in a shit-load of trouble and Jack seriously doubted the man would even know how to handle a gun, let alone fire one.

Checking that the safety was on, he tucked the gun in the back of his jeans before making sure he returned anything he had touched back in the right place. Rearranging the boxes and leaving the garage, Jack resecured the padlock and walked back to his car, telling himself that he was doing Mr. Smith a favour by taking his gun.

He placed the weapon in the glovebox and sent his client a text message:

**We need to talk. I’ve found something interesting.**

The reply was almost instant:

**Meet me at my factory tomorrow. 10am.**


	21. Present Day

**Present day:**

Kate let out a deep breath as she pulled up outside Jack’s place. It had been another long and shitty day at work and made even worse by the fact that she’d brought a couple of case files back with her.

She knew better than to bring work home, but that wouldn’t matter to the string of young women who had gone missing recently. Another night might be one too many for them and she knew she would never forgive herself if any them turned up dead. Besides, she hoped that it might make Jack feel more useful than he had recently.

After being home from the hospital for nearly three weeks, Jack was becoming more independent with each day that passed and Kate was aware that the lack of anything other than his rehab sessions to occupy his mind was chipping away at his resolve and self-esteem. He needed something other than his brooding to focus his mind and Kate hoped that talking some of the case files over with him might help with that.

Maybe it would also spur him into doing something more than just kissing her and turning his back towards her when they went to bed on the evenings that she stayed over. He was getting physically stronger each day and part of her hoped that he would take things further than just kissing her.

If the response of his body was anything to go by, he certainly wanted her as much as she wanted him and yet any time she made a grab for his top or the button of his jeans, he would move away suddenly and put distance between them.

They’d not been intimate since before the shooting and the angry sex they had the night before back then didn’t really count. For all of his bluster, Kate missed the tender way he held her in his arms when they made love. Jack had a much gentler side to him than many people got to see, and she missed the physical closeness they used to have.

She was painfully aware at just how much of a hit his ego had taken in the past six months, but surely he didn’t think that she wasn’t still attracted to him? He’d been through the wringer both physically and emotionally and while his body’s strength was returning, there was something in Jack that kept pulling away each time Kate tried to get too close.

As much as she told herself that it didn’t matter, being intimate with the man she loved was important and she couldn’t deny that physically they were the perfect match. It felt as if he was keeping her at arm’s length and yet she didn’t know why.

Seeing that the lounge light was as she walked up the steps to his building, Kate decided she would knock this time, instead of letting herself in like she normally did.

She knocked twice but received no answer.

“Jack?”

“Cody?”

Maybe they’d gone out, Kate thought to herself. 

It didn’t seem likely. Jack had refused to go anywhere except the hospital since he’d returned home and any attempt she, Darragh or Cody had made at getting him to venture further into the land of the living had been met with hostility and several choice words from Jack.

She unlocked the front door and let herself in, frowning when she saw that Cody’s bedroom light was turned off.

“Cody… Jack, are you in?” She called out as she walked down the hallway.

She gasped when she saw a pair of feet by the couch twitching, followed by a strangled moan.

She ran forward, biting back a sob as she watched Jack’s limp body jerking repeatedly. She grabbed a cushion and placed it under his head, remembering everything the hospital had told her about convulsive seizures. There would be nothing she could do but wait for the seizure to run its course except protect Jack’s head from any further harm until it was over.

She sat back on her heels, keeping an eye on the time and fearing that if the seizure went on too long she would have no choice but to call for an ambulance and that Jack would end up back in the place that held him hostage for so many months.

How long had he been like this and where the hell was Cody? What was the kid playing at leaving Jack alone like this?

She let out a sigh of relief as Jack stopped twitching and opened his eyes with a groan. He was looking up at her, clearly confused.

“What happened?” He croaked, his head pounding painfully. It was then that he felt the cushion behind his head. “How long?” He asked as he tried to sit up.

She held out a hand to stop him.

“Wait, let me check you over first.”

He swatted her hand away and dragged himself onto the couch, screwing his eyes shut at the painfully bright lights.

“I’m fine,” he told her.

She ignored him and made her way to the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water before handing it to him.

“You don’t look fine,” she said, entirely unconvinced by his attempts to allay her fears. “Where the hell is Cody?”

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, keeping his eyes clamped shut.

“He went out to get us dinner,” Jack said, letting out a pained breath.

“And he left you alone?”

He opened his eyes to look at Kate and regretted it instantly.

“I’m not a fucking toddler,” he growled. He closed his eyes again. “Can you turn them off?”

Kate looked at him, confused.

“Turn what off?”

“The lights,” he answered, biting back a groan. “My head is killing me.”

She looked him over, clearly concerned.

“Maybe we should take you back to the hospital,” she suggested, biting her bottom lip. She did as he asked as they sat in the semi-darkness.

He snorted and one eye crept open to look at her.

“You spent months trying to get me to leave that fucking place and now you want me to go back?”

He had a point. She couldn’t argue with that. It took several weeks to convince him to leave and now here she was trying to send him back there again.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” She asked him timidly.

He reached out a hand and squeezed hers gently.

“It’s been the first one since…”

He didn’t finish the sentence; he didn’t need to. She knew exactly what he meant and perhaps they’d been fortunate that a seizure hadn’t come upon him until now. The doctors warned them that they were something Jack would have to live with, but it was a stark reminder that no matter how far he’d come in his recovery, there were some aspects of his life that would never be the same again.

It caught her by surprise when Jack made an effort to pull himself to his feet. She stopped his shaky movements easily enough by grabbing hold of his arm.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

He blushed at the question, hating to show any kind of weakness in front of the woman he loved.

“My head,” he replied. “I need to - “

“Stay there,” she said, knowing precisely what he meant. Jack Taylor would never admit to anyone that he was in pain. The fact that he was even considering reaching for the heavy duty painkillers prescribed to him meant that he was in agony.

Making her way to the kitchen, she heard Jack scramble up off the sofa and weave his way towards the bathroom where she heard him retching violently several times. Her heart broke for him, wishing that she could take his suffering away, but she was just as helpless as he was against the devastating effects of the bullet that had almost killed him.

She stood in the doorway of the bathroom, watching over Jack until the heaving stopped. She handed him the pills and a glass of water before helping him to his feet and guiding him towards his bedroom.

* * *

“Skip?” Cody called out, shutting the front door with his foot, surprised to find the lounge light off. “You gone to bed already?”

Cody looked down at the two packets of fish and chips in his hands. He’d been gone longer than he expected to, but there was a bastard of a queue at the chippy and he might have got a little distracted texting Sarah as he waited to collect his order…

He’d only been gone thirty minutes, an hour tops. It was still early, and Jack was not the kind of man who went to bed mid-evening. There were nights when Cody had to almost forcibly remove Jack from the couch and send him in the direction of his bedroom, although it wasn’t surprising that the man’s body clock was all over the place after spending so long in hospital. Cody knew from personal experience how it could kick your usual sleeping pattern straight in the bollocks.

Placing the greasy packages on the kitchen counter, Cody walked over to the stairs and called out again.

“You alright up there, Skipper?”

When he reached the top, he saw Kate sitting on the bed, a hand running through Jack’s hair and her fingers skimming lightly over the scar above his ear.

“Everything ok?” Cody whispered, looking down at Jack.

“I found him on the floor…when you were out.”

Cody felt the blood drain from his face. He should have known better than to believe Jack’s bluster. What would have happened if Kate hadn’t let herself in? How long would Jack have been on the floor for?

“Kate… I’m sorry,” Cody replied, tears brimming in his eyes. How could he have been so stupid?

She stopped his self-imposed guilt trip in its tracks.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she told him. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

Oh, but how Cody wanted to blame someone for his friend’s predicament. Yet there was nothing that any of them could do except make the most of a shitty situation, but it was yet another reminder that all of their lives had been irrevocably changed by that fateful night at the factory with all of them having to come to terms with a new normal.

“I guess the Skipper doesn’t want his dinner then?” Cody said glumly, looking at his shoes and feeling awful.

Kate smiled at him as she carefully extricated herself from Jack’s loose hold on her.

“It’d be a shame to let them go to waste,” she replied, giving the sleeping form of Jack one last glance before closing the door behind her. Tonight had only served to show them that there was still a long road ahead for all of them, and it was a journey that none of them would be able to complete on an empty stomach.

Jack would not be happy when he woke in the morning after once again being painfully reminded of his new limitations, but no matter how many insults he threw their way, Cody and Kate would stand strong in the face of each and every one of them.

They knew, without a doubt, that there was simply no other choice.


	22. 24th November

**24th November:**

Pulling up outside the textile factory, Jack grabbed the gun from the glovebox before placing it in the rear of the waistband of his jeans. Mr. Smith was playing a dangerous game by thinking that he could run around waving pistols in people’s faces. Playing that kind of game usually led to people getting shot and Jack had no desire to be the poor schmuck who took a bullet for someone else’s benefit.

He found his way to Mr. Smith’s office easily enough and didn’t bother knocking as he let himself in. 

He was rewarded with a scowl from his client who quickly finished his phone call before snapping his mobile phone shut.

“You’re early,” Mr. Smith snapped, glancing at his watch.

It was 9.30am. 

Jack shrugged. “What can I say. I’m full of surprises.”

Mr. Smith ignored the comment.

“What is it that I can do for you, Mr. Taylor? I thought I made my instructions very clear the last time we met.”

Jack gave him a rueful smile.

“You expect me to take you at your word, even though you’ve lied to me at every turn?”

Mr. Smith looked affronted at the remark.

“I assure you that I have been nothing but honest with you - “

“Bullshit,” Jack cut him off before drawing the gun from the waistband of his trousers and placing it on the man’s desk. “When were you going to tell me about this?”

The blood drained from his client’s face as he made a grab for the weapon. Jack was too quick and picked it up before the other man could reach it.

“Where did you find that?” Mr. Smith asked, his calm veneer cracking for the first time.

“In your lockup, along with some very interesting documents,” Jack replied, concealing the gun once more. “Were you planning on grabbing Paloma and running off somewhere with her?”

Mr. Smith attempted to regain his composure.

“I told you, she’s not happy with that animal,” he replied. “Even if I manage to get her away from him, Mr. North won’t stop looking for her. He’ll kill anyone who gets in his way.”

Jack folded his arms over his chest.

“What’s your grand plan then?” He mocked. “Run off halfway around the world and hope he doesn’t follow you?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“You have no idea what it takes,” Jack scoffed. “You might be a posh, rich prick, but you’re way out of your depth here.”

“Which is why I need you, Mr. Taylor,” the man implored him. “I know you’ll find a way to get Paloma out of Mr. North’s grip. Just rescue her and let me deal with the rest.”

Jack looked the man up and down.

“Go and find some other stupid prick to do your dirty work. I’m done.”

Jack turned to leave.

“No you’re not,” Mr. Smith insisted.

“Don’t push me, you wouldn’t want to get blood all over that nice suit of yours,” Jack threatened.

“You’ll do exactly as I say, Mr. Taylor.”

“Or what?” He mocked the other man. “You’re way out of your depth.”

Mr. Smith shot him a smug grin.

“Am I?” He retorted, turning his laptop screen so that Jack could see it. He felt his breath catch painfully in his chest as he watched grainy video footage of he and Kate at his apartment the other night..

It was enough for him to see red.

“You oily little fucker!” Jack growled, launching himself at the man.

Mr. Smith took a step backwards.

“You and your girlfriend really are quite adventurous, I must say.”

“You don’t want to make an enemy of me,” Jack threatened. “Give me the video or I’ll break your fucking neck!”

“Why would I want to do that?” Mr. Smith replied. “This is my leverage and I’m sure that your girlfriend’s colleagues would love to see how she cavorts with such a lowlife like you.”

Jack bristled at the man’s threat.

“She has a good career, and it would be such a shame if it all came crashing down around her. No one will respect her if they happen to watch this particular home video,” Mr Smith continued with a smug grin.

“What do you want?” Jack ground out, seething with anger.

“I want you to help me get Paloma back,” Mr. Smith replied. “I had hoped the money I gave you would be enough to convince you, but I’m a man who likes to hedge his bets. Give me Paloma and no one ever needs to see this video except you and I.”

“And if I do?” Jack countered. “How do I know that you’ll keep your word?”

Mr. Smith looked down his nose at him.

“Well, you’ll just have to trust me.”

Jack glowered at the man before storming from the office and banging the door violently.

He trusted Mr. Smith about as far as he could throw him.

* * *

Jack threw his door keys on the kitchen counter, still seething from his encounter with Mr. Smith. His knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel of his car all the way back to his apartment. It was almost enough for him to head to the nearest off-license to buy a bottle of scotch.

Almost.

Getting shit-faced could wait until after he’d found the cameras Mr. Smith had planted. He would tear the place apart if he had to.

The first couple were easy to find, hidden between books and one on a shelf in the corner of the room. He dropped each camera on the floor before crushing it with his booted foot, cursing himself for not having seen them until it was too late.

He stalked up the stairs to his bedroom, throwing clothes behind him as he searched through drawers and the nightstand until he found the three small digital units and crushed them beneath his boot too.

The job was only half-done though. He still needed to get the video footage from Mr. Smith before anyone found out, especially Kate.

Kate, for fuck’s sake.

He knew he was on his last chance with her and if she caught wind of the footage Mr. Smith had of her…it would be the final nail in the coffin they called their relationship.

He should have known from the start that he would never be good enough for her. No matter how hard he tried, he would always bring the people around him to ruin, whether he meant to or not.

“Jack, you home?”

He screwed his eyes shut at the sound of Kate’s voice.

“Just a minute,” he called out, picking up clothes and the broken pieces of the cameras and stuffing them in the nearest drawer he could find.

“Rough day?” He asked as he came down the stairs and saw how tired his lover looked.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” she answered as she flopped onto the couch, blowing the hair from her forehead with a long sigh. She looked up at him. “How about you?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing special,” he answered as he sat down next to her.

“How did the meeting with Mr. Smith go?” She asked, putting her hand in his.

“Let’s just say that he and I are not exactly seeing eye to eye at the moment,” he answered evasively.

Kate sat up straighter and looked him in the eye.

“Jack,” she said suspiciously. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He tried to give her his best innocent look.

“Mr. Smith is a prick, that’s all.”

Kate rolled her eyes at the comment.

“Nothing new there then,” she replied. “So, are you going to do as he asks and help Paloma?”

Jack placed his chin on the top of Kate’s head, frowning as he pulled her closer. Mr. Smith hadn’t so much asked as threatened him to continue with the case.

He wasn’t going to tell Kate that. Not if he could help it, anyway.

“He says she’s innocent in all of this.”

“Jack Taylor - protector of the innocent,” Kate laughed.

“Hardly,” he huffed.

He felt her hand caress his cheek as she looked at him lovingly.

“You’re a much better man than you give yourself credit for.”

God, he never did know how to react to this kind of soppy shite. Any time anyone tried to pay him a compliment his usual response was to throw it straight back in their face.

Her lips were on his before he realised what was happening and soon she was pulling at the hem of his t-shirt, making her intentions towards him obvious. As much as he wanted things to continue, those fucking spy cameras kept burrowing their way into his consciousness.

Had he found them all or was there one final fucker hiding somewhere?

Reluctantly, he pulled away from her, taking her hands in his own and pushing them back to her lap.

“What’s wrong?” She asked. Jack never turned down an opportunity to sleep with her. Ever.

“Nothing,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I’m just knackered, that’s all.”

Kate tried her best not to feel hurt by his seeming rejection of her advances.

“We can still sleep together though, right?” She asked. “As in the same bed,” she clarified when she saw the look on his face. “No funny business, I promise.”

Kate frowned as she followed him up the stairs. Was he sick and not telling her?

Maybe he was still sore from the kicking the week before.

That hadn’t stopped him the other night though…

She shook the thought from her mind. Maybe a good night’s sleep would do them both good.


	23. Present Day

**Present day:**

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Jack said, narrowing his eyes as Kate handed him several files before emptying the paper bag of groceries onto the countertop.

“What’s that?” She asked innocently, not looking at him as she set about arranging pots and pans on the stove.

Jack dropped the files on the counter.

“You’re trying to make me feel useful,” he said with a huff.

Kate looked up from what she was doing momentarily and smiled at him.

“I passed them to you, I didn’t ask you to read them,” she replied, wiggling her eyebrows at him. “But seeing as I’m busy making us dinner, you can have a look through those and tell me what you think.”

Jack rolled his eyes at her.

“You don’t trust me to be able to make us an edible dinner?”

“Your cooking was shite even before the bullet, god knows what it’s like now,” she quipped, relieved when Jack laughed instead of taking it as an insult.

It had been two weeks since Kate found him collapsed on the floor in his lounge and Jack had been moody and aggressive for days after once again being reminded of his new limitations. 

They were fortunate that he’d not experienced another seizure since and were buoyed by the news that Jack’s many months of rehab were almost over. There would be regular appointments with a neurologist for years to come, but physical therapy sessions would soon be a thing of the past. As long as Jack followed the medical advice, he would be able to live a relatively normal life.

He picked up the first case file and sat on the kitchen stool, glancing over the details of a young girl who had been reported missing just over a month ago.

“Any leads?” He asked, taking a sip from the glass of water in front of him. He might have tried to convince himself before the shooting that he was drinking a glass of neat vodka, but oddly he hadn’t even thought about booze since returning home.

Kate smiled to herself, her back turned to the man she loved as she stirred a pot of pasta.

“She was a grade A student, had friends and then suddenly disappeared overnight. No one has seen or heard from her since. Her parents are distraught.”

“Does the father check out?” Jack asked, knowing that when young girls went missing, the suspicion quickly fell onto any male figures in their life.

“He’s clean,” Kate replied. “Just desperate to get his daughter back.”

Jack picked up another case file and found a similar story - a young girl with no history of stepping out of line, model student…and now missing.

“How many girls?” 

“Seven,” Kate answered. “There seems to be at least one each week.”

“Any chance they’re still alive?”

Kate chewed on her bottom lip. God, she hoped they were, but with no trace of any of them since the night of their disappearances, it wasn’t looking good for them.

“Maybe it’s connected to Mr. North,” she said after a pause, bracing herself for Jack’s reaction. It had been the whole mess with Paloma and the two men fighting over her that got him into this mess in the first place.

Mr. North had been killed in the shootout at the factory lot, but that didn’t mean his associates had given up on what was a lucrative line of work. Mr. North’s demise left a hole in the market that someone else would only be too glad to fill.

She risked a glance at Jack as he stroked at his beard, contemplating the idea that human traffickers were still out there, picking up unsuspecting young women from the streets of Galway. Kate had managed to fill some of the gaps in his memory of the days leading up to the shootout at the factory, but there were still huge holes that he couldn’t fill, no matter how hard he tried to recall what happened.

Jack was a smart man and saw through his girlfriend’s subterfuge easily enough.

“You’re hoping something in here’s going to jog my memory, right?”

After plating up their meal and bringing it over to him, Kate settled down in the seat next to him, placing a hand on his arm.

“If you can remember anything…it doesn’t matter how small. It might help us find who took these girls.”

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“Kate…I wish I could,” he said, screwing his eyes shut and cursing his useless brain.

She’d brought the case files with the intention of making Jack feel better about himself, and now here she was putting pressure on him to recall any piece of information from his investigation into Mr. North that might help the Guards crack the case of the missing girls.

She tilted his chin and looked into his eyes.

“It’s ok, it doesn’t matter,” she reassured him. She could see the shame written clearly across his face. Of course it mattered.

They ate their dinner in silence as Kate admonished herself. She hadn’t expected Jack to be able to recall anything pertinent to her current investigation, but knew full well that he would expect it of himself and would once again be found wanting.

Clearing the plates, she grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him to his feet before kissing him slowly. She was relieved when he didn’t pull away when she deepened the kiss. She smiled as he cradled her face in his hands but as soon as she made to pull at the hem of his shirt, Jack pulled away.

After weeks of false starts, Kate needed to know what it was that was holding him back.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

He tried to shrug her concern off.

“It’s nothing,” he replied, rubbing at the back of his neck and refusing to look at her.

“Don’t you like me anymore?”

It sounded needy to her own ears, but she needed to know why he kept pulling away from her. Was he punishing her? Did he blame her for him getting shot in the first place?

“Of course I like you,” Jack replied.

“Then what is it?”

Her heart ached when she saw the look of shame cross his face.

“It’s just…”

“Just what, Jack?”

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair as he paced the kitchen.

“I’m worried that I won’t be able to…”

She grabbed both of his arms and pulled him closer to her.

“Be able to what?”

“Remember what you like,” he mumbled so quietly that she almost didn’t hear him.

She found herself falling a little more in love with him at his admission.

“That’s why you’ve been pulling away?” She asked, tears in her eyes.

His refusal to look at her was the only answer she needed.

“I know, pathetic, isn’t it?” He cursed himself.

She silenced any further grumbling from him with a searing kiss.

“I think it’s incredibly sweet,” she replied, their foreheads touching. “Who knew grumpy Jack Taylor could be so cute?”

He frowned at that.

“Cute wasn’t exactly what I was aiming for,” he replied.

“And what were you aiming for then?”

He kissed her sensually before answering.

“Hot…horny…irresistible?” He suggested as he felt his arm being tugged and led up the stairs to his bedroom.

Kate grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and lifted over his head. She would not be denied this time as she shrugged out of her top with a little help from Jack who stopped suddenly.

“What if Cody comes back?”

“What does that matter?” Kate asked as she undid his belt and continued to kiss him.

“I don’t think I could look him in the eye anymore if he came home and found us…you know…”

“He’s staying at his mother’s tonight,” Kate reassured him, finally undoing the button of his jeans and stroking him, although he needed little encouragement in that department.

Soon they were naked and between the sheets as he peppered kisses across her face and neck as his hands roamed further down her body.

He stopped suddenly and looked at her.

She reassured him with a deep kiss.

“You’re doing fine,” she told him as he kissed the crook of her neck and positioned himself between her legs. “Now, don’t stop until I tell you to,” she ordered him as she felt them connect in the most intimate of ways.

It was sweet and gentle, not at all like the anger-fuelled sex they’d had the night before their world had been turned upside-down and Kate had no complaints as far as this time around was concerned. With a little gentle prodding and encouragement, he’d found all the places that set her body on fire when it came to his touch.

“You can tell me honestly if that was shite,” he said as he lay on his side afterwards, tucking loose strands of her hair behind her ear.

“You seemed to enjoy it,” she replied with a smile.

He frowned.

“Did you?” He asked her, looking her in the eye for any sign that she was lying to him.

“I would have thought that was obvious.”

She’d hardly been quiet when he’d brought her to her peak, and had spilled himself inside her shortly afterwards as her inner walls clenched around his length.

“On second thoughts, maybe I could do with a bit more practice?” He replied, looking at her hopefully.

She answered by rolling back on top of him and kissing him fiercely.


	24. 25th November

**25th November:**

Jack arrived at the hospital as quickly as he could.

He had been reading the local paper and sipping on a coffee in his apartment when Kate called and told him of a transvestite who was found unconscious in a dirty alleyway in the early hours of the morning.

Kate was breaking protocol by getting him involved, but knew Jack was right when he told her that the Guards wouldn’t exactly break a sweat looking for a suspect who went around beating up crossdressers.

She met him outside the A&E department, pulling her coat around her in an attempt to ward off the chilly November air.

“How is she?” Jack asked, taking a drag from his cigarette.

It still took Kate by surprise that Jack used the pronoun ‘she’ so easily when it came to men dressing up and parading themselves around as women. It was something Kate still struggled to get her head around at times.

“They roughed her up pretty good, but the doctors think she’ll be ok.”

“Any witnesses?”

Kate shook her head.

“Did she give you a description of who did this to her?”

Kate shook her head again.

“Something tells me that she’s holding back.”

Jack finished his cigarette and stubbed the butt into the ground.

“You think she knows who attacked her and isn’t talking?”

Kate folded her arms and let out a frustrated breath.

“She’s scared and doesn’t know who to trust and she’s definitely not a fan of the police,” she replied.

“What makes you think I’ll have any more luck?” Jack asked.

Kate shrugged her shoulders.

“Can’t hurt to try, can it?”

Using her badge to get them through the busy A&E department, Kate led Jack down a number of corridors until they reached a curtained-off area.

“Angel, it’s Detective Noonan, can we speak with you again?”

Kate pulled the curtain back as Angel looked at her fearfully.

“This is Jack,” Kate told her softly. “He’s here to help you.”

The young transvestite looked Jack up and down and he suddenly felt an almost paternal instinct come over him.

Angel was no more than five feet tall and barely 90 pounds soaking wet. Her petite frame meant that she would be unable to cause harm to anyone, even if she wanted to. What kind of animal would beat someone so small so badly?

He moved to take a step forwards, freezing when Angel flinched at the sudden movement.

“I know you’re scared,” Jack said, standing still. “Detective Noonan and I just want to help you.”

Angel screwed her eyes shut.

“No one helps me, not unless they get something they want in return.”

Angel’s accent made it obvious that she was from north of the border, somewhere around Bangor Jack guessed by the sounds of it.

“We know Mr. North is not the type of man you want to cross,” Jack continued. “We know he’s handy with his fists and his feet.”

His words seemed to hit home with Angel.

Jack gave her a wry smile.

“Mr. North and his friends paid me a visit too,” he said as he approached the bed slowly and motioned to the chair. 

Angel nodded her head, her eyes never leaving Jack’s as he made himself comfortable.

“What did you do to make him angry?” Angel asked quietly.

“I approached Paloma and asked her a few questions. He didn’t take kindly to that.”

“You know Paloma?” 

Jack nodded his head. 

“I get the feeling that she’s in trouble, just like you are,” Jack continued. 

Kate found herself stepping back and watching as Jack built up a rapport with the victim.

“Anything you can tell us might help put Mr. North away for good,” Jack suggested.

Angel shook her head.

“Even if you do, other people will just take his place. We can never run away; they won’t let us.”

“Mr. North works with other people?” Jack prodded.

Angel nodded her head, her bottom lip trembling.

“He has associates everywhere…England, mainland Europe… We all get told that Mr. North will help us to make a better life for ourselves, he promises us money, an education, acceptance…but all he ever did was take our money and force us to do so many things…”

“Things you didn’t want to do?” Jack asked.

Angel looked down at her hands as they lay in her lap.

“He’s always had perversions…but some of the things he made us do… I wouldn’t treat a dog like that, let alone a person. I suppose people like us deserve it.”

“No one deserves to be treated badly, Angel,” Jack reassured her. “We want to get the people responsible so we can make sure that they can’t do this to anyone else.”

“The Guards won’t do anything,” Angel insisted.

Jack gave her an encouraging smile.

“It’s a good thing that I’m not in the Guards then,” he said with a chuckle.

Angel looked him in the eye, the hope shining there dying as the realisation hit her that no one would be able to stop Mr. North. He was far too powerful to be stopped by just one man.

“You seem like a good man, but Mr. North…he’ll kill you…he’ll kill all of us if he finds out anyone has been talking to you.”

“I want to help you and Paloma and the others, but I need you to give me something to go on…something that might help bring him down.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Angel replied, her whole body beginning to shake. “Please, I don’t want you or anyone else getting hurt because of me. I’ll be ok.”

“You don’t look ok, Angel,” Jack frowned. “And I can’t walk out of here without knowing that I did everything I could to help you and anyone else Mr. North has under his control. Anything you can give me… a name, address… anything might help.”

Angel chewed her bruised lower lip as she considered his words.

“There is an old house on the edge of the city, it’s where he takes the new girls. He says that they need to be ‘broken in’ before they’re good enough to put on the streets. He takes their passports and their money and keeps them prisoner until they agree to do what he wants.”

“That’s perfect,” Jack said encouragingly. “Just tell me the name of the road and I’ll do the rest.”

* * *

Kate stood outside the hospital, gazing admiringly at Jack. It was enough to make him full uneasy.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He huffed as he tapped out a cigarette from the carton and lit it.

“She would barely say a word to me and yet within minutes you had her singing like a canary.”

Jack frowned at the remark.

“She’s been chewed up and shat out by the system, no wonder she doesn’t trust anyone in it anymore.”

“I’ll process the paperwork and leave the parts out about Mr. North,” Kate replied. “I’ll see if we can look at getting her into a refuge of some sort.”

Jack blew smoke out of his nose.

“He’ll find her no matter where you put her. The only way we can stop him is to get rid of him for good.”

Ok, Kate definitely didn’t like the sound of that…

“You heard her, Jack. This guy is dangerous, he won’t think twice about putting a bullet in you.”

Her voice was tinged with worry. As much as he drove her to fury at times, she couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to him either.

“Just promise me you won’t go over there all guns blazing, ok?” Kate said as she looked him in the eye. “Let me see what I can find out about the address before you go over there and don’t even think about going in without me.”

“Your colleagues are hardly going to be chomping at the bit to help me,” Jack scoffed. “And if we turn up with a whole army of cops, they’ll leg it and we’ll never find any of the girls that they’ve got hidden there.”

Kate shook her head.

“Leave them to me,” she said, her tone brooking no argument from Jack or anyone else. “We’ll bring that animal Mr. North down. For good.”


	25. Present Day

**Present day:**

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” Jack grumbled as he walked down the promenade arm in arm with Kate.

She laid her head on his shoulder as they continued to walk, feeling the gentle breeze coming off the water in the bay.

“Because you can’t spend the rest of your life stuck in your apartment,” she told him plainly. 

“And you think parading me through the streets of Galway is any better?” He growled, staring at yet another passer-by who kept looking at him. “I feel like a bloody freak show in the circus.”

She stopped walking and it was enough to make Jack look at her with their arms still intertwined.

“People care about you, Jack.”

He barked out a laugh.

“That, I find hard to believe.”

Kate could tell him of all the concerned enquiries she’d had from locals while he was in hospital, but what would be the point? Jack couldn’t take a compliment at the best of times and would feel more than a little uncomfortable to think that anyone gave a toss about him or his welfare.

“You can be a real obstinate pain in the arse, you know that?” She told him, tutting at his stubborn nature, all the while knowing it was the very aspect of him that meant he was still alive and standing in front of her today.

He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“One of the many reasons that you love me, I’m sure,” he retorted, his grin falling when he saw the serious look on her face.

“I do love you, Jack,” she told him as she looked him in the eye. “I hope you know that.”

He could feel his heart start to pound - should he say it back to her?

He’d never been any good with this kind of stuff and would rather wipe his arse with sandpaper than talk about his feelings. She was looking at him expectantly and he felt his mouth go dry.

“Kate, I - “

He was cut off by a wino staggering toward them.

“And he has arisen once more,” the homeless drunk spluttered, giving Jack a toothless smile. “Tis’ the second coming of Jesus!”

Kate pulled Jack away before he could respond as she pointed at one of his favourite watering holes - The Crane.

“I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink,” Kate said, leading him toward the pub. He gave the wino one final look before falling in behind her, kicking himself for hurting her only moments ago.

He could feel the eyes of the regulars boring into him and wanted nothing more but to head straight back out the door and stomp his way back to his apartment to hide.

“Jack,” a familiar voice called out. “They told me you were home,” Jeff said as he stood behind the bar.

“Since when did my existence become front-page news?” Jack grumbled as he made himself comfortable in one of the booths.

He shook his head when Jeff placed a freshly-poured glass of Guinness in front of him, tapping at the side of his head that still bore the scar from his surgery.

“Your coffee tastes like shit, but a coke would be grand,” he told the barman as Kate ordered herself a glass of wine.

“Don’t take it personally,” Kate told him as they waited for Jeff to return. “People were worried about you.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“The pubs especially,” he replied drolly. “I’m surprised half of them haven’t gone out of business in my absence.”

“As if you ever paid your tab,” Jeff scoffed, placing the drinks in front of them and standing awkwardly by the table.

Jack narrowed his gaze at the man.

“Something we can do for you, Jeff?”

Jack watched as the barman fished something out of his back pocket and handed it to him.

Jack’s eyes widened as he fingered through the envelope full of cash and tried to hand it back to the other man.

“I’m not in that line of business anymore,” Jack said. “I can put you in contact with some people - “

Jeff shook his head.

“This is for you, Jack…from the regulars.”

Jack looked at him blankly.

“When people heard what happened, well… some of the regulars wanted to buy you a drink and seeing as you were…” Jeff cleared his throat awkwardly. “I started putting the money in a jar and the next thing you know I’ve got people walking in left, right, and centre putting a few euros in.”

Jack felt his cheeks flame with shame. Not only were people looking at him like some kind of freak, they were pitying him and forcing their charity upon him.

“I don’t need anyone’s pity,” Jack ground out, feeling his temper get the better of him. “Give the money to an orphanage or something,” he said dismissively.

“People just want to do right by you,” Jeff replied. “They feel like they owe you, they want to help you.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help,” Jack growled clenching his fists tight enough for his knuckles to turn white.

“Still as stubborn as shite,” Jeff said, shrugging his shoulders and handing the envelope to Kate instead. “Some things never change, eh?”

* * *

Kate had about enough of Jack’s sulking by the time they returned to his apartment. He was sullen and monosyllabic any time she tried to make conversation with him on their way back home.

“You can be a real ungrateful bastard at times, you know that?” She scowled at him, shrugging her coat off and hanging it on the hook by the door. “You don’t have to throw people’s kindness back in their faces.”

Jack slumped down on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m not a bleeding charity case. I don’t need anyone’s money.”

Well, if he wanted to play hardball, he was going to get it from her both barrels.

“Your pride going to pay your bills then, is it?” She countered, picking up a handful of the unopened envelopes that had ‘final demand’ stamped across them. “Last time I looked; you didn’t have a job.”

He huffed at that.

“And last time I looked I didn’t have a fucking bullet hole in my brain either.”

She stood in front of him, her arms still crossed.

“You could take on a case or two,” she suggested, feeling her own hackles rise as he rolled his eyes at her and dismissed the thought out of hand.

“I can hardly look after myself without being babysat, what makes you think I could work a fucking case? In case you forgot, I’m having a few issues with my memory.

“You have Cody,” she prompted him. “You made a good team before.”

“Before I almost got him killed, you mean?”

That memory, more than most, was one Jack wished he could forget, but the bastard thing kept playing in his mind on a loop, making him feel guilty for ever giving the young kid the time of day.

“Cody has his own life,” Jack mumbled, running a hand over his weathered features.

“Why don’t you use one of those notebooks then?” She suggested, gesturing to the notepad that sat on the coffee table.

“Who do you think I am, Sherlock fucking Holmes or something?” He spat at her.

Kate could feel her own anger boiling and knew she was dangerously close to saying something she would end up regretting later.

“I’m going grab a shower,” she told him, walking towards the bathroom. “I’ll leave you and your pity to it.”

Kate returned to the lounge almost thirty minutes later, deciding that Jack had enough time to marinate in his own self-pity. Despite being a grown man, he had the propensity to act like a recalcitrant child when the mood took him.

Any residual anger she felt at Jack began to melt away as he stood in the kitchen, holding out a steaming cup of coffee to her.

“Peace offering?” He said, looking at her hopefully. 

She took the proffered cup and narrowed her eyes at him.

“You’re still an arsehole,” she said, although the smile on her face softened her words.

He returned her smile with a shy one of his own when pain lanced across his skull.

Jack couldn’t help the groan that escaped his lips as he felt his legs buckle.

Fearing another seizure, Kate guided him to the couch, ready to take action if his body began jerking and convulsing.

Jack’s eyes were open, but whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t her as he held a hand to his forehead in an effort to lessen the pain as the room began to swim out of focus and random, disconnected images flashed before his eyes.


	26. 26th November

**26th November:**

As much as he didn’t want to, Jack was heeding Kate’s warning and holding off on visiting the house that Angel gave them the address of. He’d already gone running blindly into this case and with the shit Mr. Smith had hanging over his head, perhaps a little caution was in order this time.

He hated having nothing to do and patience had never really been one of his virtues.

_The devil makes work for idle hands…_

It was at times like this that Jack was tempted to head to the pub and fill the rest of his day with drinking.

He shook the thought away as he went to make himself another coffee. He was already in enough shit with Mr. Smith and he still needed to figure out a way to get hold of the video the smug bastard paraded in front of him a few days ago. Drunk Jack would have already gone over there, beat the living daylights out of the man and probably got himself arrested.

Sober Jack decided to do things differently.

Who was he kidding? Drunk Jack and Sober Jack were two sides of the same coin and now here he was thinking about himself in the third person…

He picked up his mobile phone, checking for any new messages from Kate and was disappointed not to find any texts from her. She promised him that she would look into the address Angel gave him and find out who owned it. If they could link it back to Mr. North, they could start building a case against him.

Mr. North was probably too smart to have the house registered in his own name, but maybe it would give them something to go on.

He was under no illusions that the Guards would not give a flying fuck about a group of social outcasts with less than Catholic proclivities. Maybe that’s why he felt so compelled to help Paloma and the others. All of them, in one way or another, were social outcasts - him included. 

No wonder Angel found it so hard to trust anyone. She’d probably learned from a young age that people would only ever love and accept her on their terms and the moment she did something for herself, they would shun her and leave to her own devices.

That particular trail of thought led to him to thinking of his cold and unfeeling mother and it was a road he was reluctant to head down. For years, he was unaware of his mother’s suffering and all the things she went through as a young girl and it was no wonder she turned out the way she had, but history ended up repeating itself in her treatment of her son.

Sure, he could blame her for every bad thing that happened, but just like his mother, it was he himself who made the choice that would define the rest of his life. For his mother it was to be cold and unfeeling towards her husband and son for fear of being hurt and for Jack it was sinking down that first slug of scotch so many years ago. Both of them made a conscious choice, no one forced them to do it and blaming those who came before wouldn’t solve anything.

Christ, since when did he get so introspective? Maybe with sobriety came a better understanding of his own failings. Drunk Jack was never this soppy and shite.

The sound of his phone ringing made Jack jump and he answered it without checking to see who the caller was.

“Mr. Taylor?” A distinctly soft English voice said.

He recognised it instantly - Paloma.

A part of him still felt aggrieved for the role Paloma played in Mr. North and his men kicking the shit out of him. The bruises on her own face showed that she was a reluctant accomplice to their crime. 

“What is it that I can do for you?” He asked warily, not wanting to walk headlong into another ambush. He could hear Paloma taking a shaky breath.

“I need to speak with you…I was hoping we could meet somewhere to talk.”

“The last time I did that I got my head kicked in,” Jack huffed.

“I’m sorry,” Paloma whispered. “Mr. North,” she began before trailing off. “He said he would hurt one of the other girls if I didn’t do what he asked.”

“Like Angel, you mean?”

“You know Angel?”

Jack closed his eyes at the thought of the tiny little thing laying battered and bruised in the hospital.

“I’ve seen what he did to her,” Jack answered. “I’ve seen what he did to you, too.”

“Are you still working for Mr. Smith?”

Jack huffed at the thought of the stuck-up prick.

“I don’t really have a choice,” Jack growled. “He wants me to get you away from Mr. North and hand you over to him.”

There was silence on the line for a number of moments.

“He can’t be trusted,” Paloma said quietly.

“Don’t I know it,” Jack replied tiredly. “But he’s got my balls in a vice.”

“Benjamin has always been like that,” Paloma said, and it occurred to Jack that it was the first time he’d ever heard the man’s first name. “I’m sorry that you’ve been caught up in this. You seem like a good man.”

Jack winced at that. Paloma didn’t know the half of it when it came to his sordid and fucked-up history.

“Would you though?” Paloma asked.

“Would I what?”

“Hand me over to Mr. Smith?”

Jack snorted at the thought.

“Hand you over to that snake? Never,” he answered quickly. “I just need to find a way to get him off my back.”

“And then what? Are you just going to leave us to our own devices?”

“The last time I asked, you didn’t want my help, Paloma.”

“Maybe we can help each other,” Paloma suggested. “I’ll send you a location, meet me there in an hour.”

* * *

Jack pulled up in the car park overlooking the coast. Cutting the engine, he looked around to check for other vehicles but found only one - a beat-up looking Volkswagen. Not wanting to walk into another trap, Jack sat in his car and waited for Paloma to come to him.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” Paloma said as she got into the passenger side of the car. The bruises on both of their faces were fading, but Jack still eyed her with a sense of mistrust. “I’m sorry for what they did to you.”

The expression on her face seemed sincere enough and Jack softened his own slightly.

“Aren’t you taking a risk coming out here?” He asked, tapping a cigarette from the carton and lighting it, before offering one to her.

She took it and nodded her thanks as he lit the cigarette for her.

“I’ve been running and hiding for most of my life, Mr. Taylor and now other people are getting hurt. I can’t live with myself knowing what Mr. North is doing.”

“Then why go along with it?” Jack asked, blowing smoke from his mouth. “Why be a part of it in the first place?”

Paloma looked down at her hands as they sat in her lap.

“Because I needed the money for…” she trailed off and blushed furiously. “Mr. North said he would help me and that all I needed to do was entertain some of his friends, but then he started asking me to do other things…to strangers. He said I needed to pay him back for the money he gave me, but the longer it went on, the more I owed him.” She wiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I only ever wanted to be loved and accepted.”

Hell, didn’t they all?

“There’s a house on the edge of the city, how many girls does he have there?” Jack asked, puffing on his cigarette.

“Usually four or five girls at any time,” Paloma answered. “But there’s always someone there with them to make sure they stay put until they’ve been ‘broken in’.”

Jack had an idea of exactly what that meant - until the girls were either brainwashed or so scared and isolated that they wouldn’t even try to escape anymore.

“How big is his operation?”

Paloma gave him a strained look.

“You’ll never bring him down, not on your own,” she replied. “He has people all over the city.”

“Why haven’t you left?”

Paloma looked at him sadly.

“I tried to…once. He found me and beat me before he and some of his associates…” she trailed off, biting back a sob. “He’ll always find me, no matter where I go.”

“But what if you could escape?” Jack persisted. “What if you and the other girls could get away from him?”

She gave him a rueful look.

“That’s never going to happen. He’ll find us no matter where we go.”

“What if I told you that I know someone who could help?”

“And how much would it cost us?” Paloma asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” Jack replied.

Paloma rolled her eyes.

“Nothing ever comes for free, Mr. Taylor. Why would you risk yourself like that and expect nothing in return?”

“Because you need help and I don’t see anyone else lining up to do you a good deed,” he retorted sharply. “Help get Mr. Smith off my back and I’ll see to Mr. North so that you don’t ever have to worry about him again.”


	27. Present Day

_Sitting on a park bench in the middle of winter with a cup of coffee in his hands… He and Kate tumbling through his sheets… A dark alley and feet flying towards him… Kate patching him up as he sat in her apartment… A gun… The smell of rain… A blue door… The sound of bullets ricocheting… An excruciating pain…and then… nothing._

Jack gasped as he slowly became aware of his surroundings once more. He felt Kate’s hands on him as she helped him to sit up on the couch.

“Are you ok?” She asked, concern evident in her voice. “What happened?”

Jack opened his mouth to respond before realising that he had no idea what had just occurred. It wasn’t a seizure; he could hear Kate calling his name, but it sounded muffled until the images stopped flashing across his mind.

He held a hand to his forehead, wincing at the pain that felt as if it would crush his skull in two. His heart was hammering in his chest.

Kate left him on the couch and went in search of the painkillers the hospital prescribed him, bringing them back along with a glass of water. He took them from her, his eyes conveying his gratitude for not making him ask. He swallowed them down, along with most of the glass of water.

“What was that?” She asked, placing a hand on his forearm.

He shook his head as if to clear it and winced at the pain it caused.

“I don’t know,” he said shakily, “but I remember the sound of gunfire…and there was a door… a blue door.”

Kate couldn’t help but feel buoyed that Jack seemed to be piecing some of his shattered memories back together. She’d told him several times how they had ended up in the factory parking lot, but she hadn’t told him anything as specific as the colour of a door. Perhaps he knew something that might help save those missing girls…

It was just a case of unlocking it from his damaged memories.

“What else did you see?” Kate asked eagerly.

“An alleyway…some feet,” he answered after a while. “You.”

She could see how tired he looked as the pills began to kick in and encouraged him to put his head in her lap, running a soothing hand over the side of his head and the scar that remained there. 

“What about Cody?” He asked, feeling sleep beckoning him ever closer.

Kate knew that Jack would hate to show any weakness in front of the boy who idolised him.

“Don’t worry, he’s on a date with Sarah,” she answered, stroking Jack’s bearded cheek.

“The pretty nurse from the hospital?” Jack asked, his voice starting to slur slightly as the stiffness leaked from his bones. “Atta boy.”

* * *

Kate jumped when the lounge light flicked on and realised that she’d been napping herself with Jack’s head still in her lap. Maybe she was more tired than she realised. She rubbed at her eyes and looked down at Jack who was still sleeping soundly.

“How’d the date go?” She asked quietly as Cody realised his friend and former partner was still asleep.

“It was grand,” he grinned. “We’re going to head out again in a couple of days.”

She smiled at his enthusiasm and part of her longed for the innocence of being young and in love.

“Everything ok?” Cody asked, nodding his head towards Jack.

“Well, I finally got him out in public today,” she said, stroking his hair once more.

“And how’d that go?” Cody asked knowingly.

She rolled her eyes.

“About as well as you would expect,” she replied, carefully extracting herself from her position under Jack.

“Wanna help me make some dinner?” Cody asked, pulling groceries from a bag.

“Sure,” Kate replied. “God knows what you two would eat if left to your own devices.”

Kate had chopped vegetables and stirred sauces under Cody’s direction all the while filling him on what had happened to Jack earlier in the afternoon.

Dinner cooked, she walked over to the couch and kissed Jack softly on the cheek.

“Hey,” she said, seeing his eyes flutter open. “Are you hungry?”

Jack frowned at the question as he forced himself to sit up.

“Not really.”

Kate looked at him sympathetically.

“Maybe some food will help.”

Jack shrugged his shoulders and allowed Kate to help him to his feet. He was too exhausted to argue with her but was surprised to see Cody in the kitchen.

“How’d the date go?” Jack asked. “Did you get your end away?”

Jack grinned when he saw the young man blush a deep crimson and was rewarded with a swat on the arm from Kate.

“Leave the poor kid alone,” she told him. “He’s cooked dinner for us.”

He must have been hungrier than he realised as Jack quickly cleared his plate and looked at Cody hopefully in the chance that there might be another helping going spare. 

Having him as a captive audience, Kate decided to probe Jack a little further about the memories that came back earlier today. She was getting heat from Clancy as well as the worried parents of the missing girls.

Superintendent Clancy all but demanded that Kate work Jack as hard as she needed to do to get results and he was insistent that Jack knew something that could be the key to solving the case. With every day that passed, the pressure began mounting on Kate to come up with something useful, either from Jack or working the case itself.

Her first few questions over dinner were subtle enough, but Jack soon caught on to what she was trying to do.

“I’ve told you what I remember. If there was something else, don’t you think I’d tell you?”

“Are you sure that you don’t remember anything else?” She asked him for what seemed like the hundredth time, but she was desperate and all out of other options. “It could be anything and it might just help us find those girls.”

Jack pinned her with a glare.

“Don’t you think I know that?” He spat at her. “I can’t tell you what I don’t bloody know, Kate. Don’t you think I’m trying?”

Kate knew he was right, but those girls…

“It doesn’t matter,” Cody said, trying to ease the tension in the room before turning his attention to Kate. “Why don’t you back off a bit, eh?”

The pain in his head was starting to come back with a vengeance and the last thing Jack wanted to do was sit at the table while Cody and Kate squabbled over what was ‘best for him’ as if he were nothing more than a troublesome toddler.

Without thinking, Jack picked up the glass of water in front of him with his left hand, alarmed to find it shaky and weak. He pulled it away, but Kate and Cody had already noticed. He could feel their pitying eyes upon him and the need to bolt from the room became too much. He quickly pulled himself to his feet and turned towards the stairs before his left leg began shaking in time with his arm.

Cody shot to his feet and caught up with him, placing a hand on his arm which Jack shrugged away angrily.

“Get your fucking hands off of me!” He snarled, weaving towards the stairs.

Kate shook her head and mouthed ‘let him go’ to the younger man as they watched the man they both cared about shakily pull himself up the stairs and towards his bedroom.

* * *

Kate silently crept in Jack’s room several hours later.

“Jack?” She whispered. “Are you awake?”

He had half a mind to ignore her after the grilling she gave him earlier, but he was too tired for games tonight. He rolled onto his side to face her as she sat on the opposite side of the bed.

“I’m sorry, Kate,” he said quietly.

She moved closer to him.

“I’m the one that should be sorry,” she replied quickly. “I had no right to push you like that.”

He looked disappointed in himself.

“I want to help you find those girls - “

She placed a finger on his lips to stop him from talking.

“I know.”

“I should probably apologise to Cody, too.”

Kate smiled at that.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. We’re used to it by now.” She looked at him hopefully. “Any room for a little one?” She asked, lifting the bedsheet.

She saw him frown.

“I’m uh…I don’t think I can…you know, tonight.”

“But can you hold me?” She asked, suddenly needing to be close to him. There was pressure on her from all sides, but everything always seemed a little more bearable when Jack was with her.

He pulled her closer until her head was on his chest and his chin was resting on the top of her head.

“That,” he answered with a sleepy smile. “I _can_ do.”


	28. 26th November

**26th November:**

Jack smiled at how easy it was to break into Mr. Smith’s home under the cover of darkness. Much like the old garage lockup where he hid the gun and illegal papers, the dumb English fuck was hardly a criminal mastermind and if what Paloma told him was true, he’d find enough in the man’s home to have Mr. Smith tied up in criminal and civil court cases for years to come.

The plan was simple - Paloma would contact her old schoolfriend under the pretence of wanting to meet while Jack would sneak his way into the Smith’s home to find his laptop and the incriminating evidence held on there.

The laptop was ridiculously easy to find and Jack smiled to himself as he held the small torch between his teeth and typed in the password with gloved hands. Paloma knew her old friend only too well and instinctively guessed that he would use her date of birth as the password for his computer.

It took a number of minutes of tapping and clicking and Jack cursed himself for not being more au fait with computers. Had Cody been here, he would have had the files on the screen within seconds. 

Jack screwed his eyes shut at the thought of Cody. The kid was much better off living his life over in America, far away from the shit storm that Jack inevitably dragged with him everywhere like a reluctant shadow.

He scowled when he finally found the video file of he and Kate at his apartment. She still wasn’t aware that Mr. Smith had evidence of their romantic liaison and although it was common knowledge to her colleagues that the two of them were seeing each other, Jack knew only too well how damaging that video would be to her career, especially in a male-dominated environment like the Guards.

Should that video ever get out, Kate would spend the rest of her career with a dark stain on her reputation and it was one that she didn’t deserve.

He deleted the file before running the program from the USB stick Paloma gave him. Much to Jack’s surprise, Paloma (in her previous incarnation as Nathaniel) majored in computer programming at university and assured Jack that running the simple program would ensure that no discernible trace of the video would ever be found, no matter how hard someone might try to find it.

Objective complete, Jack pulled out his phone and brought up a number of files on the laptop that showed Mr. Smith was not exactly being honest when it came to his tax returns and that the immigration agency would have a field day when it came to the number of illegals the man was currently employing to fill his factories with workers.

He took several photos that would have Mr. Smith tied up in knots for long enough so that Jack could finally do something to help Paloma and the other girls currently under the thumb of Mr. North.

Closing the laptop lid, Jack placed the computer back where he found it and traced his way carefully back through Mr. Smith’s home. His eyes landed on the drinks cabinet in the lounge and he was tempted to stop and have a drink at the posh prick’s expense but ended up thinking better of it. He would need a clear head if he wanted to save Paloma and the others, but it was tempting to help himself to some of the expensive scotch the man had just as a ‘fuck you’ to the English twat who thought he could blackmail him.

* * *

Fresh from the clandestine operation to see Mr. Smith off for good, Jack arrived at Kate’s apartment that evening and the two of them enjoyed a passion-filled night between the sheets. Maybe it was partly due to the sense of relief he felt at knowing that Mr. Smith’s leverage over him was now gone, but the two of them went at it like rabbits and Kate certainly didn’t complain as he ravished her body in the way only he could.

Sat a safe distance away from Mr. Smith’s factory, Jack sipped on a cup of coffee as he watched Kate and several other Garda officers get out of their cars, along with a number of agents from both the Irish Immigration Service and Customs authorities. Kate and her colleagues would serve the arrest warrants while the federal agencies would seize the evidence they needed to throw the book at the businessman.

Jack smiled at the thought of the oily little fucker getting his just desserts. Not only did he think he could own Paloma, Smith was also stupid enough to make an enemy of Jack Taylor, and he wasn’t the type of man that would let that kind of insult slide. Too many people wrote him off as a useless drunk, but there was an intelligent man lurking just beneath the surface for those who cared to look.

He sent a text message to the burner phone he gave Paloma when they met the previous day, letting her know that all had gone to plan. Jack watched on as several officers left the factory with the arms laden with boxes and folders. Minutes later, he saw Mr. Smith led from the factory in handcuffs and a scowl on his face.

_One down, one to go,_ Jack thought to himself as he turned the key in the ignition and drove away.

* * *

Kate felt the eyes of Mr. Smith upon her when she entered the interview room.

“How much longer are you planning on keeping me here?” The Englishman asked having regained his composure after the surprise raid on his factory. “My lawyer will have me out of here when he arrives, and I shall not forget the insult you have forced upon me.”

“Save it for the judge,” Kate said gruffly. “We’ve got enough here to hold you for at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer…or…perhaps you could start answering some of my questions?”

Mr. Smith gave her a thin smile.

“And what would I get out of this little arrangement, officer?”

“Well, you’re guaranteed a night in the cells if you don’t,” Kate shot back, not looking at her adversary as she rifled through the pages in front of her. She looked up when she heard him chuckle.

“My, you’re quite the little firecracker, aren’t you?” Mr. Smith mused.

Kate rolled her eyes, all too used to men being patronising arseholes when it came to her abilities as a cop.

“No wonder Mr. Taylor seems so enamoured with you.”

That comment caught her attention.

“What did you say?”

Mr. Smith gave her a condescending smile.

“You heard me,” he said, studying his fingernails. “I know all about you and that lowlife piece of scum.”

It took all of Kate’s restraint not to launch herself at the man and beat him senseless, but she knew it would play straight into his hands if she reacted to his taunting.

“Tell me,” Mr. Smith continued. “What is it about him that keeps you coming back? He’s one of life’s wasters. I honestly can’t find a redeeming quality about him.”

“Yet you paid him to look for Paloma,” Kate shot back.

“I needed someone who could be collateral damage,” Mr. Smith replied tonelessly. “No one is going to miss a man who can’t even stay sober for more than a day. He’s a nobody…the world would be better off without him.”

“You arrogant piece of shite,” Kate growled, realising all too late that she’d fallen into his trap of goading a response from her.

“Touched a nerve, did I?” Mr. Smith chuckled. “He isn’t worth the effort you know.”

“What the hell would you know?” Kate hissed, standing and leaning over the desk menacingly.

“He didn’t tell you, did he?”

Kate tried to keep a hold on her already frayed temper.

“Tell me what?”

“About why he kept working for me.”

Kate looked at him blankly.

Mr. Smith shook his head and dismissed whatever he was planning to say next.

“Do have fun going through my laptop,” he said with a sneer. “There’s a particular home video that I think you’ll find very interesting and I must say…you and that drunken mess are quite the adventurous type. I’m sure your colleagues would love to see what you get up to with that lowlife.”

Kate quickly felt the blood drain from her face.


	29. Present Day

_He could do nothing but watch on in horror as the paramedic leaned over the prone man’s body._

_He winced as they jabbed a needle into the man’s chest, feeling his own constrict as another shock was sent through the unmoving body._

_It seemed as if time was moving in slow motion, but before he knew it, he was looking down at the silent figure who was now in an ambulance and being rushed to hospital._

_Thank God Kate was there. She would know exactly what to say to help the injured man hold on, but by the pallor of his skin, it wasn’t looking good._

_He felt the breath rush from his own body as he heard the machines whine, making it clear that time was running out for the man on the stretcher. He could hear Kate telling him to hold on as he continued to watch on in a state of shock._

_All too soon, the ambulance screeched to a stop and the stretcher was pulled away as a dozen people seemed to crowd around the unmoving body, rushing into the inner bowels of the hospital until they reached a sterile-smelling room._

_He turned around, expecting Kate to be standing next to him._

_Why was he in here and not Kate? It didn’t make any sense._

_The medical staff began talking incessantly, ordering scans, wires and tubes as someone cut the injured man’s clothes off before searching for something._

_“His veins are collapsing,” a doctor said, shaking his head as he scanned the man’s upper body. “Try his legs.”_

_There were tubes and wires everywhere. He averted his eyes when a nurse removed the sheet covering the body and inserted something into the groin. This was far more than he ever wanted to see and so he turned, looking for the door that would take him back to wherever Kate was. She was always so much better at this kind of thing than he was. No matter how hard he tried, he would always say or do the wrong thing._

_He turned away from the sight of doctors and nurses poking and prodding the body on the stretcher, looking for the door they’d burst through only minutes before._

_“His blood pressure’s on the floor,” one of the medical team called out. “Heart rate is dropping.”_

_The doctor wiped his arm across his forehead to remove the sweat building up there. The look on his face was grim._

_“Order as many units of blood as you can get,” the doctor said, not looking up from his patient. “Page Neurology and get them here quickly,” he ordered. “Let’s get him ventilated and order scans ASAP.”_

_The door was no longer there, and he began to panic, suddenly feeling the prick of needles and the choking sensation of something blocking his throat. He couldn’t breathe and his head felt like it would explode at any moment._

_And then…nothing._

* * *

Jack sat up quickly, rubbing at his chest as he tried to control his breathing.

“Hey, are you ok?” Kate asked, immediately waking when she felt him first begin to thrash. 

He attempted to slow his breathing and could feel sweat running down his back. His hands were shaking as he ran them over his head.

The last thing he remembered from the previous night was apologising to Kate for his outburst and then holding her in his arms until they both fell asleep.

“A bad dream,” Jack replied quietly. “I think.”

Ever since he mentioned the blue door yesterday, Kate had been trying to think of ways that she might be able to jolt more of his memories.

“Tell me about it,” she prodded gently.

“I’m not sure you’d want to know,” he frowned. “It isn’t anything to do with those missing girls.”

“I want to help you, Jack. You need to tell me what’s going on inside your head. Don’t shut me out…please,” she implored him.

He said nothing for a number of moments.

“I’m not sure what’s a real or just some figment of my fucked-up brain,” he whispered.

“We’ll figure it out together,” she reassured him. “Tell me what you saw.”

He refused to look at her as he spoke.

“There was a body lying on the ground, but I could never see their face,” he began, taking a deep breath. “You and I were standing there at the scene and then in the ambulance, but when they took them in the hospital, you disappeared. I just stood there watching them jab needles and tubes into them and I couldn’t do anything…when I tried to leave the room the door was gone and when I turned back, I finally saw who it was.”

Kate didn’t need to ask, she knew exactly who he saw on that gurney and with or without Jack’s permission, she would call the neurologist and ask if flashbacks and disturbed dreams were natural given his kind of injury.

“How could I have seen that if it was me lying there all along?” He asked, more to himself than her.

She turned from him quickly and for the briefest of moments to wipe the tears from her eyes, having experienced that horrible journey in the ambulance first-hand. Gathering herself, she motioned for him to lie down again as she held him close, hoping that both of them could get a little more rest before they faced a new day.

* * *

“Ok, thank you for letting me know,” Kate said, as she quickly finished her phone call, nodding her thanks to Cody for insisting he and Jack take a walk in the fresh air, especially as it seemed to have jogged at least one memory in Jack’s brain already and so there was no harm in hoping that it would work again.

During the time that the two men had been out, Kate spoke with Jack’s neurologist at length about what happened the previous day and she was somewhat relieved to hear that splintered memories and vivid dreams were considered normal given the injury Jack had sustained, although he cautioned that just because one memory had resurfaced, there was no guarantee that others would follow. But it was a start, and there was a chance, no matter how small, that more memories might return to him.

“What have you been up to?” Jack asked, suspicion lacing his voice as he filled a glass of water from the tap and downed it quickly.

“Just checking for an update on the case,” she replied, hoping that the guilt of going behind his back wouldn’t give her away. Despite her best intentions, she knew he would be angry that she was making calls about his health without his permission.

“Any new leads?” Jack asked, sitting down beside her on the couch.

She shook her head. Unless some new information cropped up soon, it wasn’t looking likely that they would make any headway with the case any time soon.

She picked up his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze as he looked at her.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” she began, glancing at Cody who picked up on her subtle hint.

“I’m gonna grab a shower and then head out to meet Sarah,” the young man said, realising that three was a crowd and that whatever Kate wanted to ask Jack, it would be better if they were alone.

“I’ve been thinking about what happened yesterday,” she began, chewing her lip nervously.

Jack let out a deep sigh. “I really wish I could remember something that might be useful to you - “

“I know,” she replied, cutting him off quickly. “I was thinking that there wouldn’t be any harm in you coming down to the station and looking over the Smith and North case files.” 

Jack pulled a face at that.

“You think Clancy wants me traipsing through his station and peeking at his files?” He asked doubtfully.

She looked him in the eye, her tone serious.

“I don’t see what other option we have right now and who knows? There might be something in there that could help us.”

“Those girls really are in trouble if I’m your best hope of getting them back,” Jack frowned. “Clancy wouldn’t go for it anyway. He can’t stand the sight of me.”

Kate looked at him but said nothing and it was enough to make him nervous.

“What?” He groused. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“When it happened,” she began, trailing off as she screwed her eyes shut at the memory. “He gave me two weeks paid leave. He thought someone should be with you if you…”

“Died?” Jack said bluntly, causing Kate to wince. “You do realise that was more for your benefit than mine?”

“He’s not as bad as you think he is,” Kate argued, feeling the need to defend her boss. “Besides, what have you got to lose by heading to the station?”

Jack arched an eyebrow.

“My dignity and pride?” He answered quickly. “Do you not think I’ve had enough of people staring at me lately.?”

“Will you at least let me call Clancy and float the idea to him?”

She was looking at him in that way that made him want to do anything she asked of him.

He finally relented and nodded his head, hoping that he wouldn’t end up regretting the decision later.


	30. 27th November

**27th November:**

Jack smoothed his hair down, checking his reflection in the bathroom mirror for the tenth time.

Kate sent him a text message over an hour ago asking if she could come round after her shift at the station and he agreed without question.

Now that he had Smith off his back, he could concentrate on getting Mr. North out of the picture and rescuing the girls caught in his clutches. If Kate wasn’t able to give him an update on the address Angel gave them, he was going to visit the place whether she wanted him to or not.

Hell, he was even wearing his best shirt in readiness for Kate’s arrival and it suddenly occurred to him that he’d never gone to this much trouble with a woman he was sleeping with before.

Except he was more than just sleeping with her, he had real feelings for Kate and it was the one reason that he was staying firmly on the wagon at the moment. He wanted to do right by her and be the kind of man that she could fall in love with.

He felt his heart pound at the thought of ‘love’, and he wasn’t really sure if he’d ever truly been in love before. He knew for certain that Kate was the first thing he thought about each morning and was his last thought at night. He found himself wanting to change his behaviour to better suit Kate and if he really stopped and thought about it, she made him want to be a better man - as cliched as that sounded.

He answered the door as soon as he heard the knock, the smile falling from his face when he saw her expression.

“Rough day?” He asked, standing aside to let her in. He winced when she slammed her handbag down.

“Something like that,” Kate replied, her tone even as she sat on the sofa with her arms crossed. “Have you got anything to drink?”

By her posture and the tone of her voice, Jack was pretty sure she wasn’t asking for a cup of tea.

Bending down to the cupboard under the sink, he reached for the bottle of Jay stashed there and grabbed a glass from the kitchen.

Kate nodded her head as she took the glass but didn’t look at him.

“Whose head do I need to go and kick in?” Jack asked jovially, trying to lighten the mood slightly.

He moved back slightly at her reaction and found himself being pinned with a fearsome glare.

“Did you throw the book at Mr. Smith?” Jack asked, trying to eek some level of conversation from Kate.

“He and I had a nice long chat,” Kate replied cryptically. “So much so that he couldn’t help but spill his guts.”

Jack rubbed at the back of his neck as he perched on the edge of the coffee table.

“I’m sorry, am I missing something here?” He asked, confused by Kate’s aggressive demeanour.

“I don’t know, Jack. You tell me.”

“Have I missed you birthday or an anniversary or something?”

Kate gulped down the rest of the scotch.

“Why break the habit of a lifetime?” she goaded him.

“Well, I’ve pissed you off somehow so you might as well tell me what the fuck it is that I’ve done wrong this time.”

Kate stood quickly, grabbing the empty glass and heading to the bottle where it stood on the countertop in the kitchen.

“When were you going to tell me about the video?”

Jack felt his heart drop to his stomach. How the hell could she know about the video?

“What video?” He asked innocently.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Jack. Smith told me all about it.”

“I - “

“Were you ever going to tell me about it?” Kate demanded. “Don’t you think I had a right to know that there’s a sex tape of me floating around somewhere?”

“I had no idea he’d hidden cameras,” Jack said, holding his hands up and trying to appease her. “I got the video off of him as soon as I knew about it. There’s no trace of it anywhere, I swear.”

His appeasement fell on deaf ears.

“How could you be so stupid?” She admonished him, letting her anger control her. “You didn’t happen to notice a load of blinking red lights around your apartment?”

“I’m sorry,” he replied, realising that there was little else he could say in the face of her fury.

She reached for the bottle of scotch and poured herself another helping.

“You’re always sorry because you always fuck everything up, no matter what you do,” she berated him.

He realised that he really couldn’t argue with that. His life was one disaster after another and now he’d got Kate involved. She didn’t deserve to be the one to pay for his mistakes. 

All he could do was stand back and let her cut him with her words.

“I didn’t want to tell you because I knew how you would react.”

He knew from the moment the words left his mouth that he’d said exactly the wrong thing.

“Don’t put this on me!” She shouted. “You lied to me!”

He held his hands up in surrender as if that would protect him from her fury.

“I didn’t lie to you; I just didn’t tell you.”

The anger seemed to drain away from Kate in a rush as she placed the glass tumbler back down on the kitchen side.

“What are we doing, Jack?” She asked him, even though she didn’t expect him to respond. “What are we doing if I can’t even trust you to tell me the truth?”

He would have taken her anger over her tired resignation as his fears quickly became reality. She was going to pull the plug on their relationship once and for all.

“Let’s face it, Jack,” she said, running a tired hand over her face. “We were kidding ourselves if we thought this was ever going to work.”

“We can,” he implored her, begging her not to walk away from whatever it was that they had going on. “We can make it work.”

“And how long until you let me down again?” She asked him plainly. “You don’t even respect me enough to tell me the truth and I’m sorry, but I can’t see myself spending the rest of my life with someone I can’t rely on.”

“I’ll do better,” Jack said desperately, reaching out to take her arm and pulling back when she flinched away from him.

“You can’t be something you’re not, Jack,” she said sadly. “No matter how much you might want to and it’s not fair for me to ask you to either. We’re not right for each other, we never have been.”

He felt his heart being ripped from his chest as she collected her handbag and made to leave his apartment.

“Kate, please,” he pleaded with her. “Don’t go. Let’s work this out…let’s talk about this.”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes and knew that if she didn’t leave now that she would quickly crumble and run back to his arms. She had to do this though, she was doing what was best for both of them, whether Jack realised it or not.

He felt his bottom lip tremble and his heart shatter as Kate closed the door and walked out of his life.

He grabbed the bottle of Jay and Kate’s empty glass, pouring himself a large measure and wincing as it burned the back of his throat. He’d given up the booze for her and now she’d left him, and so he returned to the one constant in his life, the one thing that never let him down. He poured himself another measure, taking the bottle with him as he sat on the couch.

There was nothing left to do other than get blind drunk and hope that he’d be able to sleep without being haunted by images of he and Kate in happier times.


	31. Present Day

“I still think this is a shitty idea,” Jack grumbled as he unclipped the seatbelt and got out of Kate’s car.

She knew for certain that the only reason he was doing this was because she asked him to. Despite his discomfort, he was willing to at least try to see if any further memories could be jogged from his fractured brain.

Jack could feel the eyes of several Guards on him as they walked towards the station.

“Why don’t you take a picture?” He spat at one spotty-looking young, uniformed officer. “It’ll fucking last longer.”

“Jack,” Kate cautioned him, her voice low. “You promised you’d be on your best behaviour.”

He let out a dramatic huff.

“You try being the star attraction at the fucking carnival then,” he shot back, shoving his hands deeply into his all-weather Garda coat.

He scowled at anyone who dared to make eye contact with him as they walked through the station and Jack knew it was only a matter of time before they would bump into Superintendent Clancy.

He hoped it would have been a little longer than the five minutes he’d been in the building for though.

“Taylor,” Clancy called out from the other end of the corridor.

“Clancy,” he retorted, his eyes widening in surprise when his adversary made his way towards him.

“It’s good to see you up and about,” Clancy said, looking him up and down.

Jack tried to find the hint of malice in the man’s tone but heard none, yet he wasn’t naive enough to think Clancy gave a flying fuck about him.

“You know me,” Jack shrugged awkwardly. “I’m like a fucking cockroach, nothing can kill me.”

Clancy barked out a laugh at that.

“That you are, Taylor,” he said with something close to mirth on his aged and weathered features.

“We’re here to take a look at those case files, sir?” Kate said, sensing the tense atmosphere between the two men.

Clancy nodded his head in the direction he’d just come from.

“They’re in interview room two, second on the left,” Clancy replied.

Jack rolled his eyes.

“I haven’t forgotten my way around this place,” he groused.

“As if you were ever sober when you were here,” Clancy huffed and it earned a pointed look from Jack who eventually smirked, glad that his old foe wasn’t treating him with kid gloves like everyone else had. Clancy still couldn’t stand the sight of him and would give him no quarter in their verbal sparring matches. “Keep him on a leash, Noonan.”

Jack’s eyes followed Clancy through the hallway as the man walked away. He felt Kate gently tug on his arm.

“Let’s take a look at those case files, ok?” she encouraged him.

“Clancy’s still as much of a prick as I remember,” Jack said as he followed her, shaking his head ruefully.

* * *

Jack closed the case file with a sigh, disappointed that nothing in the folder seemed to jog any memories.

“Fucking nothing,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose as the headache behind his eyes grew steadily.

“It’s ok,” Kate said, trying to reassure him.

“It’s not fucking ok, Kate,” he said angrily, although she knew the anger was directed at himself and not her. “Those girls are still missing.”

He picked up Mr. Smith’s case file and looked through the evidence photos for a second time, willing his useless brain to come up with something…anything that might help connect the dots and find those girls.

“It was a long-shot anyway,” Kate replied, trying to appease him. “At least we tried.”

Jack’s head shot up at that.

“Is that what you’re going to tell the parents of those girls when you find their bodies?”

His head was pounding and the harder he tried to remember something, the less his brain wanted to cooperate. He realised that he was being unfair to Kate though.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said quietly, feeling utterly defeated.

Kate accepted his apology and let it go.

Jack had always been quick to anger even before his injury and the bullet had wreaked havoc in the part of his brain that controlled his emotions. He was disappointed, angry at himself for not being able to help her with the case. His outburst was understandable and not unexpected given the circumstances.

Kate saw the fight drain out of him quickly as he hung his head with a defeated sigh.

“Come on,” she said, holding out a hand to pull him to his feet. “Let’s head home, ok?”

He nodded his head, too tired to argue with her.

* * *

She let Jack brood all the way back to his apartment, knowing it was useless trying to talk to him or gee him up and out of his funk. He would pull himself out of it when he was good and ready and not a moment before. No one could ever say that Jack Taylor wasn’t stubborn when he put his mind to something.

Kate was relieved to find Cody sitting in the living room as Jack opened the front door and led them inside.

“How’d it go?” The young man asked eagerly. His face fell when he saw the scowl Jack shot him. “Maybe something will twig in a day or two?” He added hopefully, although another day or two might be a day too late for the missing girls. “Maybe you just need to give it some time?”

“You a fucking brain surgeon now?” Jack growled. He knew he was being unfair to the poor kid, but he was seething at himself for not being able to remember anything at all when going over the case files. There were huge holes where his memories should have been and there was nothing he could do to get them back. It made him feel useless.

Cody would not be deterred in the face of Jack’s foul mood though.

“How about you and I do some old fashioned snooping,” Cody suggested. “You know, speak to the witnesses…gather information. Just like the old days?”

Jack barked out a humourless laugh.

“For the love of God, please tell me that you’re joking.”

Cody was bouncing around the room like an eager puppy at the thought of working with his hero again.

“Taylor and Cody - back in business,” Cody said, putting his arm around Jack’s shoulder. “What do you say?”

Jack shrugged out of Cody’s grip and moved to the far end of the kitchen. He crossed his arms as he gave Cody a doubtful look.

“I say that you’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Would it hurt to try?” Kate suggested. “Maybe going back to some of the places might help?”

“You’re clutching at straws, Kate,” Jack replied.

Clutching at straws might be the best chance those missing girls had though, and Kate knew why Jack was reluctant to get Cody involved. The last time the two of them worked a case, the young man had nearly died, and Jack would want to keep pushing him away in order to keep him safe.

“Would you at least think about it?” Kate asked hopefully.

“Fine,” Jack finally relented. “I’ll think about it, ok?”

He was rewarded with a kiss on the cheek from Kate and a beaming smile from Cody.

* * *

Kate crept into the bedroom several hours later. She quietly undressed and crawled into bed beside Jack. He woke at the sound of the mattress dipping under the added weight of his girlfriend.

“How’s the headache?” She asked softly. She’d picked up on his discomfort during the evening and finally managed to push him the direction of the bedroom. The headaches were a common occurrence now and she knew that lying in the dark was the only thing that made him feel even remotely human when in the middle of one and that he was loathed to reach for the painkillers that all but knocked him out for hours on end.

He turned on his side to face her.

“Well, Cody yapping like a fucking poodle didn’t help,” he frowned, although there was little malice in his words. He’d finally relented and agreed to revisit some of the locations that he’d been to while working for Mr. Smith and Cody had been loud and excitable ever since.

She leaned over to kiss him gently on the lips.

“Thank you, Jack.”

“Anything for you,” he replied, a smile quirking at his lips before his face grew serious. “Kate, I’ve been meaning to say….since yesterday…”

He trailed off as she looked at him expectantly.

He screwed his eyes shut, cursing himself for tripping over his words. Fuck, he was never good at these kinds of things…

“I love you,” he whispered, closing his eyes and bracing himself for her reaction. 

“You do, huh?” She replied, leaning over to kiss him again. “Since when?”

Jack felt his cheeks flame at her gentle teasing, yet he could tell her the exact date and time he fell in love with her. It was etched onto his heart whether he liked it or not.

“Since the night you pushed that guy into the canal,” he mumbled, hoping that she wouldn’t hear. “Christ knows why you’ve stuck around, I’m just glad that you have.”

The past six or seven months had been horrific for both of them, but only served to make Kate realise that she couldn’t imagine a world without Jack in it. He was boorish and impossible at times, but it was the love she held for him that kept her coming back for more.

The bullet to his brain had shaken most of the arrogance from him as he began to learn to live with a new normal. He was more hesitant and uncertain and now that some of his defences had crumbled, she found the love she had for him becoming much deeper than before as she saw a new side to him. Perhaps almost dying had given Jack the impetus to say exactly what he meant, knowing that the time could have run out for him to say it all.

She leaned over to kiss him once more, tears glistening her eyes and she knew that she’d never love another man in quite the same way that she loved Jack.

“Me too,” she sniffed. “Me too.


	32. 28th November

**28th November**

Jack woke on the sofa with a groan.

His head was killing him, and he couldn’t remember how he’d come to sleep on the couch until his eyes fell on the empty bottle of Jamesons laying on its side on the carpeted floor. It looked at him accusingly.

Then it all came flooding back.

Kate arriving at his door, bristling for a fight as she tore strips off of him. Him pleading with her to understand, to not walk out on what they had going on. He promised her he would do better, but she turned tail and walked out of his life, no doubt for the last time.

If that little shit Mr. Smith wasn’t already in custody, Jack would have stomped over to the man’s home to beat the living shite out of him for ruining things with Kate.

It might make him feel better for a couple of hours until the devil on his shoulder taunted him, telling him that it was his own fault that Kate had left him again. He was nothing but a useless, fucked-up waster and Kate was better off without him.

Still, it didn’t make the sting hurt any less.

Kate was the first woman who made him want to try to change his ways to make her happy. He knew without a doubt that he was a better person with her by his side. She made him want to do better, try to harder to be the kind of man she could rely on.

Who was he kidding? He always fucked things up wherever he went, and Kate was much better off without him.

He pulled himself to his feet and felt his stomach roll. He forced the nausea down and pulled out the scrap of paper with the address Angel had given him. He promised Kate that he wouldn’t go there without letting her know, but he was already in her bad books and so another indiscretion was hardly likely to matter all that much.

He hadn’t yet decided if he would go in all guns blazing when he arrived at the house that the girls were allegedly being held in, but he would take the gun he found in Mr. Smith’s lockup just in case knowing that North wasn’t the kind of man who played around when it came to his business dealings.

There was fuck-all he could do to mend his relationship with Kate, but if luck was on his side, he just might be able to get those girls away from Mr. North once and for all.

* * *

Kate thumped her alarm to silence it as she opened her eyes and instinctively looked across the bed.

It was empty.

She stormed from Jack’s place the previous evening, well aware that she would say something she’d later regret if she stayed a moment longer.

Despite every chance she gave him, he messed up time and time again and for her, the video of the two of them was the last straw for their relationship. There was no point being with someone who she couldn’t even trust to tell her the truth.

In the harsh light of day, she could see why Jack didn’t want to tell her and she had reacted in exactly the way he feared she would, but it still didn’t make it right that he kept it from her. What would have happened if Jack hadn’t been able to get rid of the video?

She knew she would never live it down with her colleagues and it made her furious that Jack had once again put her in such a difficult situation. They’d never been right for one another and they were both much better off apart. Nothing good would ever come of them being together.

It didn’t make her miss him any less though.

She wondered what he was doing right now. Probably drinking himself stupid - it always seemed to be his destruction method of choice. He was likely sleeping off his bender right now and at least that meant he couldn’t get himself into any trouble any time soon.

Kate picked up her phone, disappointed not to find any texts or calls from Jack. Her ego was wounded that he’d not called her up and begged for forgiveness yet.

Well, if that was the way he wanted to play it, she would match his stubbornness with her own and refuse to make the first move. Perhaps the longer they spent apart, the less it would hurt to not have him near.

She pulled herself out of bed, forcing herself to get dressed and get moving. They were still holding Mr. Smith at the station and she was eager to have another crack at the shady businessman, even more so after her clash with him yesterday. He might have caught her off guard, but she was smart enough not to fall for the same trick twice and throwing the book at Mr. Smith would at least give her the satisfaction of wiping the smug grin off the man’s face for the time being.

As she made herself ready for the day, she resolved to not think about Jack at all, knowing that he wouldn’t even rouse until mid-morning at least - how much trouble could he get himself into if he was indeed sleeping off a bender?

* * *

It probably wasn’t the wisest idea to get behind the wheel of a car after a heavy night, but Jack really couldn’t give a flying fuck. Kate had gone and taken his heart and any remaining willpower left in him. Maybe someone would do him a favour and put him out of his misery and take him out completely.

This was exactly why he didn’t do love and relationships, they always hurt too much when they inevitably ended in disaster. ‘Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all’ …whoever came up with that shite clearly never had their heart smashed to pieces…

The roads were oddly quiet and Jack half expected there to be some sort of police presence on the street Angel had given them the name of. Even if it was an ‘undercover’ car, it would still stick out like a sore thumb. The Guards were many things, but subtle wasn’t one of them.

“Number 59. The house with the blue door,” Jack mumbled to himself under his breath. Angel was exact in her description of the place and there was nothing that immediately set it apart from any of the other houses on the road. 

To anyone who passed by, the house was no different from any other. There were no smashed windows or doors hanging off their hinges. The garden looked well maintained and gave the impression that a house proud couple lived there in peace and tranquillity.

Jack wasn’t quite sure what he’d been expecting, but his thoughts had turned more towards some sort of drug den rather than the well-kept facade standing across the road from where he was parked. He knew only too well how looks could be deceiving though.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, debating whether it was worth getting out of the car and taking a closer look. From what Angel said, there would be at least one person guarding the place from the inside and they would also no doubt be keeping tabs on any activity on the street outside.

A part of him wanted to go in there all guns blazing, but it was people like Angel who would pay the price for his rashness. He was better off sitting across the street, biding his time and getting a picture of the kind of routine the people guarding the house had.

The best time to get into there would be just after the guards changed shifts. If he could creep around the back of the house and sneak in undetected, he could take the new guard by surprise. It would be hours before anyone would know any different and Jack hoped he would have the girls far enough away at that point that it would be too late for North or any of his employees to do anything about it.

He checked the glovebox for the gun and envelope of cash that Mr. Smith gave him when he took on the case. 

He would probably need both of them before the day was out, but for now, he sat back in the driver’s seat of the car and waited.


	33. Present Day

**Present day:**

Cody winced as Jack slammed the front door closed, knowing that the older man was angry with himself for still not being able to recall anything useful in the case of the missing girls.

Despite spending the day revisiting certain locations, nothing seemed to jolt any memories linked to either the North or Smith cases. They were all still hidden away somewhere in Jack’s brain and Cody could see that his friend was becoming increasingly frustrated at his inability to recall anything pertinent that might help find those girls.

He hung up his coat quietly, not wanting to anger Jack any further. The other man had already blown up at him once this afternoon and hurled abuse his way and he was in no hurry to experience round two any time soon.

“Maybe tomorrow, something might click?” Cody said quietly.

Jack kept his back to his young friend, but Cody could see the slump in his shoulders clearly as Jack nodded and shrugged off his coat.

“I’m going to grab a shower,” Jack mumbled as Cody watched him go.

Maybe it was best to leave Jack to his own devices, he thought. He’d get nowhere trying to cajole his old friend when he was in this kind of mood.

Cody busied himself in the kitchen as he heard the shower turn on. Maybe some food and a hot drink would lighten Jack’s mood and it certainly couldn’t hurt to give it a try.

The sandwiches and coffee Cody made sat on the coffee table for over twenty minutes and it soon began to gnaw at him that something might be wrong. Jack was never one to spend much time in the shower, certainly not this length of time, anyway.

With a sense of dread, Cody knocked on the bathroom door.

“Jack?” He called out. “You ok in there?”

His question was met with silence.

Cody reached for the handle of the door, pushing on it in an effort to open it.

It was locked.

He banged on the door again.

“Answer me, Skip, or I’m going to kick the door down!” He called out, trying to calm his rising panic.

He took a deep breath and took several steps away from the door to build up enough momentum to kick it in.

His first few attempts left him bruised and the door undamaged and Cody cursed all the movies and TV shows for making it look so easy to kick a door down.

On the fourth attempt, it finally gave way and Cody clambered into the room, his eyes landing on Jack who was currently holding his head and groaning.

He leaned over and turned the shower off, surprised to find Jack still fully clothed.

“What are you doing in here?” Jack asked shakily, surprised when his fingers came back covered in blood as he held them up to inspect them.

“Saving your arse, Skip,” Cody replied, reaching for a towel and holding it to the other man’s head. “What happened?”

He caught Jack scowling at him from under the towel.

“What the fuck do you think happened?” Jack growled as he snatched the towel away and held it to his forehead.

Cody stood over his friend, hands on his hips.

“Right, I’m taking you to the hospital,” the young man insisted.

“Like fuck, you are,” Jack replied testily. “I’m fine.”

Cody would not be deterred.

“At best you passed out and cracked your head. I’m not taking any chances. Kate will have me guts for garters otherwise.”

“I don’t need a frigging nursemaid, Cody.”

“You either get in my car and let me drive you to the hospital, or I’m calling an ambulance,” Cody countered, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your choice.”

He couldn’t quite work out what it was that Jack mumbled underneath his breath as he helped him to his feet, but Cody was certain that it wasn’t anything kind.

* * *

“This is a complete waste of everyone’s time,” Jack grunted as Sarah, Cody’s girlfriend, pushed the curtain aside and smiled at him.

“You’re lucky I’m covering a shift in A&E today,” she replied, bringing a tray of metal implements closer to the bed.

“Cody told me you’d be here. We set the whole thing up just so he could spend some more time with you,” Jack quipped, feeling embarrassed that Cody’s girlfriend, of all people, was the one sent to stitch him back up.

He tolerated the poking and prodding from the doctor, but it was plain embarrassing to have someone he knew cleaning and closing the wound on his forehead.

“I wouldn’t put it past the two of you,” the nurse smiled, motioning for Jack to shuffle down the bed. “But this needs stitches, so hold still and let me have my wicked way with you,” she said as she began pulling out various implements.

Chastened from the day’s events, Jack lay quietly and let the nurse do her work, wincing slightly as the stitches were tied off and a dressing applied to his forehead.

“Still as handsome as ever,” the nurse smiled, surveying her handiwork and tidying her tools away.

“Can I go home now?” Jack asked, sitting up on the bed.

The nurse shook her head.

“Dr. Franz wants to come and see you. I’ll send Cody in to wait with you.”

_Great,_ Jack thought, _Just fucking great._

* * *

Night was drawing in by the time Cody and Jack returned to the apartment and the older man’s current mood was worse than it had been earlier. Being poked and prodded and asked a dozen questions by the neurologist certainly hadn’t helped to lighten Jack’s mood any.

Cody let out a sigh of relief when he realised Kate wasn’t home. Maybe they would be able to get away without telling her at all…

He should have known that neither he nor Jack ever had that sort of luck when Kate let herself in the apartment barely ten minutes after the two men had returned.

“What a fucking day,” Kate sighed, shrugging off her coat and hanging it up by the front door. It was then that she caught the guilty look on Cody’s face. “What aren’t you telling me?” She said suspiciously as the blood drained from the young man’s face.

“I…uh… I need a shower,” Cody squeaked, leaving the room as quickly as he could.

“What have you done, Jack?” She asked as her lover kept his back to her.

“Nothing,” he shrugged, hoping that she would take ‘no’ for an answer.

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

“I’m tired. Can we talk about this in the morning?”

She’d had a shitty enough day as it was, and was in no mood for playing games with Jack tonight and so she grabbed him by the arms and turned him round so that he had no choice but to look at her.

She gasped and held a hand to her mouth when she saw the dressing and the purple bruising around Jack’s left eye.

“What the hell happened?” She asked. “Who did this to you?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose knowing that Kate wouldn’t let the subject drop until she was satisfied that she’d gotten to the truth. It was enough to give him a whole other headache on top of the one he already had.

“No one,” he answered, trying to shrug out of her grip.

“Then why the hell do you have a black eye?” She asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Go and ask the bathroom sink,” he said quietly. “It took issue with me when I tried to have a shower earlier.”

He had been making such good progress with finding his way around his own home and needed less support from Cody with each day that passed, so much so that Jack hoped the kid would soon move out so that he could finally get back to some kind of normality. All of that had gone to shit this afternoon and there was no way Kate or Cody were going to leave him on his own for fear of a repeat of today’s events.

“Cody took me to the hospital to get checked out,” Jack said as he kissed Kate on the forehead. “I’m fine, there’s no need to worry.”

“You had another seizure?” She asked as she melted into his embrace.

“They think so,” he replied quietly, resting his chin on the top of her head. “They told me that I best get used to them.”

She held him a little tighter.

“I’m sorry, Jack.”

“Why?” He asked, genuinely surprised.

“Every time you take two steps forwards, something seems to drag you four steps back. I know it must be frustrating for you.”

“I guess I’ll just have to live with it…” he replied, “…and Cody for a while longer yet.”

“I know it’s not what you want, but would you promise me something, Jack?”

“What’s that?” He asked.

“That you won’t take a shower without me for the time being, ok?”

The thought of taking a shower with Kate made him grow hard and he had no doubt that Kate could feel his body’s response to her words.

“That is definitely a promise that I don’t think I’ll have any problems keeping,” he chuckled.


	34. 28th November

**28th November:**

It took hours of waiting, but there finally seemed to be some movement in the house with the blue door.

Sliding down in the driver’s seat of the car, Jack was able to see a white transit van pull up several feet away from the house he was watching.

He smirked when he saw a bald-headed, stout-looking man open the rear door of the van, pulling out a toolbox before making his way to the house with the blue door. To any casual observer, it would look like a workman was visiting the house, but Jack knew a thug when he saw one.

Whatever racket North and his people had going on, it was well run enough that they were able to carry out their business smack bang in the middle of a well-kept residential area, so much so that no one had any idea of what was happening right under their noses.

He watched on as the bald-headed man knocked on the front door and entered the house. Ten minutes later, a similar-looking man left, carrying the same toolbox. To anyone not paying attention, it would seem like it was the same person leaving and entering.

Not to Jack though.

He gave it another twenty minutes and then grabbed the gun and cash from the glovebox, stashing them in the pockets of his all-weather Garda coat before climbing from the car and making his way over to the house with the blue door.

He was probably asking for trouble, but he knocked on the front door to see who might answer. He wasn’t surprised when the heavy answered the door and grunted at him.

“What do you want?” The thug said in a heavy Eastern European accent.

“Work’s been hard to come by since I lost my job at the docks,” Jack replied, looking glum.

The thug looked unimpressed.

“Why should I care?”

“I’m just looking for work. I can do anything really,” Jack answered, trying to surreptitiously glance inside the house.

“Anything?” The thug repeated.

“Anything.”

“Then fuck off before I beat the shit out of you.”

Seeming suitably chastened, Jack beat a hasty retreat, keeping his back turned to the house until he heard the front door slam shut. He smiled to himself, confident that there was only one thug guarding the house and with the element of surprise, it would be easy to overpower them and get the girls to safety.

He carefully made his way down the alleyway between two of the houses further down the road and crept through their back gardens until he reached the house with the blue door. Checking the safety on the gun was off, he tucked it into the back of his jeans and jumped over the garden fence.

The thugs guarding the house were big but desperately short on brains judging by the fact that back door was unlocked when Jack pressed down on the handle. 

He crept inside, gun drawn as he made his way silently down the hallway, checking each room in turn. The downstairs was empty and so Jack began quietly climbing the stairs, alarmed to see the thug standing over one of the girls with his jeans around his ankles.

He didn’t give it a second thought, he launched himself at the thug and after gaining the upper hand, beat the man unconscious with the butt of the gun before tying him up and securing his arms to the radiator on the wall.

With the thug taken care of, Jack glanced across to a timid figure shaking in the corner of the room.

“Are you ok?” He asked, wiping the blood from the gun on the thug’s t-shirt.

The figure continued to shake and stared at him.

“Who… who are you?”

They reminded Jack so much of Angel. The person cowering in the corner was clearly a man going through a transition to become female, just like Angel was.

“I’m Jack,” he replied gently. “Angel told me I might find you here.”

“You know Angel?”

Jack nodded and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“I do,” he answered. “She said there were more of you. Are the others still here?”

It seemed to be the wrong thing to say as the eyes of the girl darted quickly around the room.

“Please don’t hurt them,” she pleaded.

Jack reached out a hand but stopped himself when he saw her flinch.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Jack said, trying to sound and look as unthreatening as possible. “What’s your name?”

The girl looked at him, debating as to whether she could trust him.

“Ruby.”

“That’s a nice name,” Jack replied with an encouraging smile, tucking the gun back in the waistband of his jeans. “How many other are there?”

The question and the gentleness with which Jack was treating her seemed to catch Ruby off-guard. Most men either looked at her with hatred or disdain, whereas the man in front of her was treating her with kindness and understanding.

“Four,” Ruby replied, sniffing back tears. “They’re in the bedroom down the hall.”

Jack pulled out the envelope of money and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” She asked, her eyes widening at the amount of euros stashed inside it.

“It’s a ticket out of here for you and the others.”

“Why are you doing this?” Ruby asked as she allowed Jack to gently help her to her feet.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” he answered.

* * *

Jack pulled the car into the docks as Ruby looked at him nervously and then back to the four other girls in the back of the car.

“Where are you taking us?” Ruby asked, her voice shaking slightly.

Jack glanced at her before bringing the car to a stop and killing the engine.

“We’re going to meet a man and give him that money,” he said, pointing to the envelope Ruby was clutching in her hands. “He’s going to get you out of Galway with new papers and passports.”

“But Mr. North has people everywhere,” Ruby replied. “He’ll find us. He always does.”

“You won’t need to worry about North for much longer,” Jack replied confidently. “I’m going to take him down, don’t you worry.”

Ruby didn’t seem convinced.

“He’s a powerful man with a lot of friends. You’ll never take him down on your own.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, Ruby. In a few hours you’ll be out of Galway and you and the other girls can start over somewhere new.”

“What about Angel and Paloma?”

Jack knew he would need to find the money to get Paloma and Angel away from Galway too, but he needed to get rid of North first. Angel was safe at the hospital for now and Jack wasn’t planning to waste any time in getting rid of Mr. North and his band of thugs now that he’d seen the girls to safety.

“I’ll get them out too,” he reassured her.

“We owe you our lives,” Ruby told him sincerely as Jack led them from the car and towards a people carrier parked just out of sight. “I don’t know who you are, but I do know that you’re a good man.”

Jack frowned, knowing that he was anything but. Kate was still mad at him and he’d pretty much fucked up every relationship he’d ever had in his life, but he was determined to do the right thing and get the girls to safety. Sure, it wouldn’t make up for all the fuckups he’d made in his life, but it was a start at least.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Ruby said, climbing into the new car with the rest of the girls.

“Go out there and live your lives and don’t ever apologise to anyone for being who you are,” he replied, finding himself getting uncharacteristically choked up. 

Ruby gave him one last look before closing the car door as Jack watched them leave with a sense of relief. He’d kept his promise to Angel and got the girls out of the clutches of Mr. North, but he was under no illusions that there were more innocent victims just like Ruby and Angel and that North wouldn’t stop until he was put out of business permanently.

He walked back to his car with a renewed sense of determination, not paying much attention to the white transit van parked by one of the large metal containers. It would only occur to him much later that it was the same vehicle he’d watched one of the thugs leave the house in earlier that day.


	35. Present Day

**Present day:**

After finishing his shower, Cody realised that it was best to make himself scarce as he walked into the lounge and found Jack and Kate kissing.

Cody squeaked out a goodbye which Kate met with a distracted raise of her hand as she and Jack continued to get lost in one another’s embrace.

Kate parted from the man she loved minutes later, gently grabbing him by the wrist and leading him upstairs to his bedroom. Once inside, she kissed him soundly as her hands roamed over his face and found their way into his hair.

He stopped suddenly when her fingers ghosted over the scar above his right ear, a constant reminder that he was not the man he once was.

“What’s wrong?” She asked as Jack took a step back from her.

He ran a hand over his beard and let out a tired sigh.

“My fucking brain,” he muttered, irritated that seizures and blinding headaches would be the cross he had to bear for the rest of his life. Never knowing when either might hit, it left him in a constant state of anxiety and uncertainty.

She closed the gap between them, grabbing one of his wrists lightly and placing his hand on the artificial breast that replaced the one she lost during her battle with breast cancer.

“Does this bother you?” She asked, searching his eyes for the truth.

“Of course it doesn’t,” he replied quickly. “I love you.”

“So why do you think this would bother me?” She countered, touching the scarred area of his head that would always be the visible reminder of the day she almost lost him for good.

Her heart ached at the look he was giving her. He seemed so unsure of himself.

“What if I disappoint you?” He asked quietly.

She wasn’t quite sure whether he meant sexually or otherwise, and they had only made love twice since the whole horrific saga began, but perhaps now was as good a time as any to tackle that issue head-on.

She kissed firstly his ear and then his cheek, before making her way to his mouth.

“How about I take the lead tonight?” She suggested, pushing him gently towards the bed until he was sat on it, before instructing him to remove his top while she did the same.

* * *

Kate woke to the sensation of the mattress moving as Jack sat on the side of the bed, holding out a cup of freshly made coffee for her.

“Morning,” he said shyly.

“How’s the head this morning?” She asked, sitting up in bed and taking the cup of coffee from him.

Jack frowned as his fingers touched the dressing still taped to his forehead.

“No worse than usual,” he replied. “You know me…skull like granite.” He shifted to make himself comfortable on the bed. “Me and Cody are going to go back to a few more places this afternoon. See if anything comes back to me.”

Kate knew how hard he was trying to remember something pertinent to the case of the missing girls and how frustrated he was that he could recall nothing that might help.

“Whatever happens, Jack,” Kate began, her tone serious. “None of this is your fault or your responsibility, ok?”

He nodded his head but said nothing, wishing that Kate’s words of reassurance were true.

* * *

Sitting in Cody’s car parked on the road that Angel had given him the address of so many months ago, Jack was starting to get irritated with his friend’s continued efforts to cajole him into some sort of conversation.

Having ignored the young man’s attempts to talk about hurling and football, he drew the line when Cody started asking about his relationship with Kate.

“Things still going well between you and Kate, Skipper?”

He shot Cody a fearsome look.

“You what?” He asked tersely.

Cody squirmed nervously in the driver’s seat and gazed out the window, not wanting to be pinned by the older man’s glare.

“You seemed to be getting on alright when I left last night,” Cody observed.

So wrapped up in kissing Kate, Cody leaving must have passed him by without a second thought.

“When are you going to ask her to move in, Skip?”

“I swear to God, Cody,” Jack replied, trying to keep a lid on his already unpredictable temper. “I’m going to punch you straight in the mouth if you don’t stop talking.”

Cody laughed nervously.

“Come on, Skip. We’re just two men shooting the breeze about our love lives.”

Oh, how Jack wished he had a gun right then…

“Ok, fine. Let’s talk about our love lives then,” Jack replied. “Did you get your dick wet with Sarah last night?”

Cody blushed furiously at the question.

“Is she an animal in the sack? She give a good blow job does she?” Jack continued relentlessly, only stopping when Cody lifted his hands in defeat. “Are we finished talking about our love lives now?” Jack asked, knowing he’d well and truly made his point with Cody. “Good. Thought so,” he finished, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jack had never been one to talk about his feelings, especially where women were concerned and maybe Cody touched a nerve with his question about Kate moving in. It was certainly something he’d given a lot of thought to recently, especially when Kate seemed to spend almost all of her free time at his place these days anyway.

He debated asking her to move in with him a number of times and Jack knew it would be a hell of a lot easier to live with the woman he loved rather than the kid he cared about like a son. 

Cody meant the world to him, but having the young man live with him and see him at his weakest was something that Jack had struggled to come to terms with. Not that it seemed to make a blind bit of difference to Cody and the way the boy continually seemed to hero-worship him.

The silence stretched between the two men until Cody finally spoke.

“There’s a lot of transit vans in this road,” he observed, looking at the house across the street where several builders sat on the garden wall taking a tea break.

The word ‘van’ seemed to spur a memory to life in Jack’s brain as images flew across his vision. There was something about this street and a white transit van…something important.

Cody turned towards his friend, his face draining of blood when he saw the way Jack was vacantly staring ahead. He shook the other man by the shoulder, trying to rouse some sort of response from him.

_A stout bald-headed man making his way to the house with the blue door…that same man answering the door and telling him to fuck off… A white transit van… He and the girls leaving the house…_

“Jack!” Cody shouted, fearing that his friend was having another seizure. “Talk to me, Skip!”

No sooner had the memories occurred, Jack found himself coming back to the present with Cody shaking him roughly.

“Are you ok?” Cody asked, clearly still panicked at what he had just witnessed.

There was something important about that white van. Jack closed his eyes, tuning out the sound of Cody’s voice as he attempted to recall anything that might set the transit van apart from the hundreds of others being used in Galway and beyond.

“123,” Jack said distractedly.

“123 what, Skipper?” Cody asked.

“The number plate of the van.”

“What van?”

Ignoring Cody, Jack reached inside his jacket and pulled out his phone.

“Kate,” he said when he heard her answer. “There was a van…a white transit. The number plate started with 123.”

Cody listened on intently as Jack answered whatever questions Kate was shooting his way before ending the call and looking at his young partner.

“We need to head to the station,” Jack told the young man. “There’s something about that van.”

Cody wasn’t sure what van Jack was referring to, but it was the first time any information had come back to Jack since the shooting and it was no doubt important that the Guards identified the vehicle and any connection it might have with the case of the missing girls.

Cody turned the key in the ignition and started the engine, smiling at the determined look on Jack’s face. For too long, his partner carried around a sense of resignation in his posture and behaviour and this was the first time he’d truly seen Jack looking alive and energetic since the shooting.

Maybe, after weeks of trying, they were finally on to something that would break the case wide open.


	36. 28th November

**28th November:**

Exhausted from the day’s events, Jack sat in his apartment cursing the fact that he’d drunk the last of his stash of scotch the night before. Sat alone in his apartment, he was feeling the loss of Kate keenly.

At least he’d done something right today though. He got those innocent girls away from North and had a plan in his head to help get Paloma and Angel away from the ugly thug too. He just needed a little more time…

The furious banging on his front door made him jump. Creeping to the kitchen, he retrieved the gun hidden underneath the sink, checking the clip before making his way to the door.

He wouldn’t put it past North and Smith to somehow be working together to send their heavies after him in revenge for getting the girls away right under their noses.

Clicking the safety off the gun, Jack kept his back to the wall and stepped closer to the front door. The element of surprise might give him half a chance of defending himself when they finally kicked the door down.

“Open the fucking door!” a woman’s voice called out and he recognised it immediately. 

It was Kate.

Hiding the gun under a cushion on the sofa, Jack took a deep breath and opened the door, bracing himself for the almighty tirade Kate would send his way.

She stormed through the front door and brushed past him, almost shoulder barging him out of the way.

“And good evening to you too,” Jack said snidely. She’d hurt him with her words last night and he was childish enough to want to hurt her back in revenge for the wounds she’d caused him.

“What did I tell you, Jack?” Kate continued undeterred. “I told you not to go there on your own!”

“What’s the matter, afraid I might have got hurt?” He snorted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You arrogant bastard, this isn’t about you!” She shot back.

“No,” He huffed. “It’s all about Kate Noonan and everyone doing exactly as she fucking tells them to.”

He could see that his words had finally hit home and took a certain amount of pleasure in wounding her.

“Where are they, Jack?” She continued. “What did you do with them?”

“I got them out of Galway and away from North,” he replied. “The Guards were doing fuck-all to help them.”

“You have no idea what we were doing!” Kate shouted. “You just wade in, cause a fucking mess and then leave it to someone else to clean it all up.”

“You don’t give a shit about what those girls have been through, Kate. You can barely bring yourself to look at them.”

Jack suppressed the urge to grin when he realised that another shot had got past her defences and left a mark.

“You think saving a couple of transvestites is going to make up for all the shit you’ve caused in your life? It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than that,” she scoffed.

“And you call _me_ arrogant?” Jack shot back. “You wanna be careful that you don’t fall off that fucking high horse of yours, Kate.”

“And who are you, ‘Jack Taylor - protector of the weak and feeble. Lord of the social outcasts?’”

So they were resorting to trading insults? So be it.

“You know, you really can be a pious, stuck-up bitch sometimes!”

She stalked towards him, her chest heaving with each angry breath she took. She stared into his eyes and he readied himself for the smack she would surely land to his cheek any moment now.

And then her lips were on his and soon hands began tearing at clothes. He pushed her against the wall as her hands made short work of the button and zipper on his jeans. Soon those hands were on his length, although he needed no further encouragement from her as he pushed into her with enough force to make her back thump audibly against the wall.

Their coupling was hot and heavy… lips, teeth, tongues tracing every inch of skin they could find as Jack quickened his pace further, letting out the anger and hurt he felt at Kate leaving him once more. Her nails raked painfully through his hair and down his back as she bit his neck with enough force that it would leave a mark for days. He felt her clench around him, and he followed her soon after as he held her against the wall, resting his forehead against her shoulder as he tried to regain control of his breathing.

They dressed in silence, neither of them looking at the other but their frenzied coupling had said what they could not. Despite their relationship being a recipe for disaster, there was something about them that worked so well together, physically at least. No matter what happened, they always seemed to find their way back to one another and he realised that he was just as addicted to her as he was the booze.

“I don’t have anything to drink, but I can make you a coffee,” Jack suggested quietly, not quite sure what kind of ground their relationship was currently on.

Kate shook her head, and he felt those first small shoots of hope wither and die at the look on her face.

“What we just did… it doesn’t mean anything.”

“So what was that?” Jack countered, running a hand over his beard.

“It was just sex. Nothing more,” she shrugged, bending down to pick up her purse.

“Really? Then why won’t you look at me?”

She couldn’t tell him the real reason why she couldn’t look at him, her eyes would give her away all too easily.

“This is it, Jack,” she told him, her voice devoid of emotion. “There is no ‘you and me’ anymore and maybe once all of this is said and done we should stay away from each other. For good.”

Jack stood frozen to the spot, shell-shocked at the finality of her words.

“Wow,” he said finally. “You really are a cold bitch… to think that I ever started believing I could - “

“Don’t,” she said, holding her hand up and screwing her eyes shut. “Whatever you’re going to say… Don’t.”

He watched her go, feeling his heart breaking all over again as she once again walked out of his life as if what they’d just done meant nothing to her.

He’d always put her on a pedestal, telling himself that she made him want to be a better person, but she’d used him just like he had the countless women that came before her. Back then, he was the one who wanted sex with no strings attached and now here Kate was playing him at his own game. But he’d never loved any of those women and there was no denying that he was head over heels in love with Kate.

Now the boot was on the other foot, each kick Kate landed on his fractured heart and bruised ego further drove home the realisation that no matter what he did, he would never be able to repent for the sins of his past and now even his own behaviour was coming back to kick him in the arse.

He and Kate were over, that much was clear.

Shaking thoughts of her from his mind, Jack picked up his mobile phone and dialled a number that would either see Paloma and Angel to safety with the other girls or end up blowing up in his face entirely.

He knew he was on a hiding to nothing either way and although he hardly had a death wish, if sacrificing himself meant he could stop North and his men for good, perhaps it would be a good use of his life and would give it some sort of meaning that wasn’t just hate and anger.

The Guards wouldn’t take kindly to him interfering, Kate in particular, but his card was already marked in that regard, the worst they could do was arrest him for obstruction of justice and that was a risk he was willing to take.

There was no point trying to sleep, the memories of he and Kate would keep him awake for days and he had a feeling that things would soon all come to a head one way or another. The Guards would think another night wouldn’t matter, but it would at least give him the chance to set his plan into motion to end North and his band of thugs for good.


End file.
